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PRESENTED 15V 



CHARACTERS IN THE GOSPELS, 



ILLUSTRATING 



PHASES OF CHARACTER 



AT THE 



PRESENT DAY. 



*£€. 



BY EEV. E. V H. CHAPIN 




REDFIELD, 
CLINTON HALL, NEW YORK. 

1852. 

[Third Edition.] 



c-56- 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, 

in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-two, "by 

J. S. KEDFIELD, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court, for the 

Southern District of New York. 



BBRTftAM SMITH 

SEP 2 8 1933 




6* 






CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

JOHN THE BAPTIST : THE REFORMER 9 

HEROD : THE SENSUALIST 35 

THOMAS: THE SKEPTIC 59 

PILATE : THE MAN OF^THE WOELD 87 

NICODEMUS : THE SEEKER AETER RELIGION . . .113 
THE SISTERS OE BETHANY 139 



PREFACE. 



The following discourses, with but slight alteration, 
are printed as they were delivered from the pulpit. I 
have sufficiently indicated their general purpose in my 
introductory remarks. Scripture teaches, reproves, and 
corrects not only by its doctrines and precepts, but by the 
various personages, both good and evil, who are deline- 
ated upon its pages. And while I have selected the most 
striking traits in each character as typical of classes at 
the present day, I am not conscious of pressing the anal- 
ogies too closely. 

If the perusal of this little volume shall help any to 
realize the vivid truthfulness and the perpetual freshness 
of the Gospel narrative, and to feel how intimately they 
are related to that human nature which, under so many 
phases, is involved with the transactions of its sacred his- 



VI PREFACE. 

tory, and to apply these lessons of warning or example to 
their own hearts and lives ; my hope and my prayer in 
presenting it to the public will be fulfilled. To such ends 
may God bless and sanctify it. 

e. h. a 

New York, Jan. 1852. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST . 

THE KEFOKMEK. 



CHARACTERS IN THE GOSPELS. 

I. 

JOHN THE BAPTIST— THE REFORMER. 

For this is lie that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, say- 
ing, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 

Matthew iii. 3. 

In studying history, it is of the highest im- 
portance that we should realize the identity of 
human nature ; that the man of the first, or of 
the tenth century, is essentially the man of the 
nineteenth; that, admitting modifications ot 
culture, however different the occasion and the 
scene, the actors are alike. For history could 
not teach by examples, it could have no practi- 
cal value, unless the groundwork of character 
were in all ages the same. But when we are 
made aware of this — whert we feel that in such 
a case we should have acted thus ; that this or 
that man, whether king or peasant, speaks like 
ourselves ; history is no more an obsolete legend, 
1* 



10 JOHN THE BAPTIST : 

or an amusing chronicle, but a solemn mirror 
which, however remote the perspective, however 
magnificent the background, reveals the play 
of our own passions, the conflict of our own 
vices and virtues, and across which, at times, 
flits the reflection of our half-conscious and 
most secret thoughts. 

And if this is true as to history in general, it 
is especially so as to the narratives of the Gos- 
pel. In ordinary history, we see human nature 
in Rome, or Greece, among institutions and 
forms that have long since crumbled away ; 
but here, it is human nature in contact with 
Christianity, living and operating to-day as of 
old in Galilee or Judea. There is not only a 
common groundwork of character, but of agen- 
cies. In the written Gospel Christ still walks 
the earth, he still urges his claims upon us, 
and we are in communication with him almost 
as directly as the Jew or the Greek. And 
Christianity is treated by us very much as it 
was treated by Herod or Pilate, by Nicodemus 
or Peter. It addresses motives and it appeals 
to dispositions the same as their's who, because 
so remote, may seem so different. 

The personages delineated in the Evangelical 
records, then, have a peculiarly practical efficacy 
for us, inasmuch as we are not only identical in 
nature with the Scribe and Pharisee, the publi- 



THE REFORMER. 11 

can and sinner, but, in many respects, our posi- 
tion is the same. They have, also, a peculiar 
efficacy as exhibiting man in connection with 
the most important truths, and the most moment- 
ous interests. 

From these considerations, I have thought 
proper to invite your attention to a brief series 
of discourses upon certain personages in the 
Gospels, each representing or illustrating some 
phase of human character at the present day. 
Of course I do not mean that those of whom I 
may speak were in every respect like those 
classes which I shall place in apposition. But 
that they exhibited peculiar traits which suggest 
and sustain a resemblance. 

With this qualification, I proceed, this even- 
ing, to speak of John the Baptist, who may be 
considered as representing the Reformer. 

This great harbinger of Christianity, by both 
his parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth, was of 
priestly lineage. Though his birth was attended 
by peculiar and supernatural circumstances, 
the details of his earlier years are wholly un- 
known. It is simply said that he "grew, and 
waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts 
till the day of his shewing unto Israel." We 
might conjecture some of the natural influences 
which helped prepare him for that mission to 
which God had elected him. His parentage, 



12 JOHN THE BAPTIST \ 

his extraordinary birth, his infancy nurtured 
under the very shadow of the temple, his youth 
spent in seclusion, and, perhaps, early inter- 
course with his greater kinsman, would all tend 
to foster in him a pious nationality and a vigor- 
ous moral life. But, in the fifteenth year of the 
reign of Tiberias Caesar, just previous to the 
public ministry of Jesus ; at a time when the 
Jewish mind was agitated by conflicting emo- 
tions, stirred by a sentiment of proud independ- 
ence and of hatred against Rome, and animated 
with the hope of a Deliverer ; when gross for- 
mality in religion prevailed side by side with 
civil violence ; in short, when the public feeling 
hung poised, tremulous, and excitable, just ready 
to be seized by any fierce passion, or to be roused 
to a more living piety, a voice was heard like 
the peal of a trumpet, breaking from the desert 
country near Hebron, and at length from the 
banks of the Jordan, crying — " Repent ye : for 
the kingdom of heaven is at hand !" Thus, 
heralding the advent of the* new Religion, self- 
denying in his habits, austere and Nazaritish in 
his whole appearance, John came as that one 
who, in the words of the text, was spoken of 
by the prophet Esaias, saying, the voice of one 
crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the way 
of the Lord, make his paths straight." This 
appeal shook the land. The people crowded to 



THE REFORMER. 13 

his baptism from all quarters, awed and attract- 
ed by one in whom they beheld the spirit and 
power, if not the very person of Elijah ; nay, 
who to the musing and ardent mind of the time, 
suggested even the Messiah himself. But to all 
he distributed severe and impartial truth. He 
hurled rebuke upon the Sadducee and the Phari- 
see, and sternly called them to repentance. He 
stripped off every factious claim, and probed 
every form of corruption with the most strin- 
gent moral test. Only once did he falter from 
this high ground and assume a secondary and 
deferential position ; and that was when there 
.came to be baptized of him, One who, in his 
purity and dignity, he felt, needed not his minis- 
tration, and who by an unequivocal sign from 
heaven, he discovered to be that Great Teacher 
whose work was far more essential and univer- 
sal than his own. Only in reference to him did 
the Baptist wave his prerogatives of Prophet 
and Reformer. But, as this central Personage 
rises upon the scene,. John retires from our view, 
and appears only in one or two instances 
throughout the body of the Gospel Narrative. 
Yet the power of his mission is very apparent 
in the reference which is made to his followers, 
and in the respect which, from fear of the peo- 
ple, the dignitaries of the Jewish nation were 
obliged to profess for him. Nay, Paul encoun- 



14 JOHN THE BAPTIST t 

tered his doctrines in the distant city of Ephe- 
sus, and even now, in Mesopotamia and Persia 
there is a sect who style themselves " the disci- 
ples of John/' At the last, we find him in the 
fortress of Macheerus— a martyr to the fidelity 
with which he had rebuked the guilt of Herod ; 
dying as he had lived — the fearless Messenger 
of God, and the uncompromising foe of all cor- 
ruption. 

I cannot dwell upon the several points in the 
character of John. That character, it is true, 
did not glow with the mild lustre of the Gospel, 
but was formed after the stern and burning 
model of old Prophets and Saints : His concep- 
tions of that Messiah whom he came to an- 
nounce were, in many respects, those of his 
people, and of his time. This appears especial- 
ly from the message which he sent to the Sa- 
viour towards the close of his own life. " Art 
thou he that should come, or do we look for an- 
other ?" It is true there are different interpre- 
tations of John's conduct in this instance. Some 
suppose that his purpose in making the inquiry 
was not to satisfy himself, but his disciples. But 
his personal testimony would have sufficed so 
far as they were concerned, and it appears pro- 
bable that he was uncertain and troubled in his 
own mind. Though he may have been intimate 
with Jesus in the purity of his life, and the won- 






THE REFORMER. 15 

der of his character, yet he expressly says that 
he did not know him officially, until after the 
signal which was given at the Baptism. And 
the full nature of that office, I repeat, seems 
never to have been clear to him. He only 
knew that it was he who should be made mani- 
fest to Israel — not discerning the spirituality of 
his Mission. Cherishing, then, the views and 
hopes of a Jew ; hearing of the miracles of 
Christ ; lingering in prison and before the very 
face of death ; he naturally longed for a mani- 
festation of the Deliverer, and marvelled that 
Jesus did not openly declare himself. The an- 
swer of our Saviour to his embassage, if it does 
not contain a mild rebuke, at least applies to 
such a state of mind. " Blessed is he who shall 
not be offended in me" — "Blessed is he," in 
other words, " who has faith in me and cherishes 
a patience consistent with such faith." 

But, although, as Christ himself declared, the 
least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than 
John the Baptist, he stands out before us as the 
bold, earnest, true Reformer. His measure 
was by no means the popular standard. He 
rebuked sectarian corruption and national guilt. 
He tore away the conceit that mere lineage 
entitled the Son of Abraham to membership in 
the approaching Kingdom, and set that claim 
upon moral grounds alone. He shrunk from 



16 JOHN THE BAPTIST : 

any dignity that did not belong to him. He 
always deferred to the Coming One, whose shoe- 
latchet he deemed himself not worthy to unloose. 
And when his disciples told him of the Saviour's 
success, with a beautiful humility, he replied — 
" A man can receive nothing, except it be given 
him from heaven.— He must increase, but I 
must decrease." But surely he needs no other 
eulogium whose memory is glorified by the 
praise of Christ ; whom he described as no 
voluptuous parasite, no reed shaken by the 
wind ; but as a Prophet, and more than a Pro- 
phet — as his own herald in disturbing a stag- 
nant formality, and breaking up the ground of 
habit, and as one who, in a corrupt and dark- 
ened generation, was " a burning and a shining 
light." 

Although, then, John stands apart from all 
other men in his peculiar relations to the Mes- 
siah, yet he represents the Reformer — a term 
which we apply to a class who have appeared, 
it is probable, in almost every age, but who are 
especially active and prominent in our own. 
And although, from this fact, a great deal has 
been said about " Reform " and " Reformers," 
this very fact also lends a peculiar interest to 
the topic considered from a religious point of 
view — considered in the light of Christianity. 
Christianity has some point of contact with 



THE REFORMER. 17 

these distinct and busy organizations — it affects 
them, and is affected by them — it has something 
to say for or against them. 

In this light, then, let me observe, in the first 
place, that Reform is legitimate. It is so, in 
accordance with the general law of improve- 
ment, and with the fact that there is a tendency 
in the course of time to corrupt principles and 
institutions, so that, previous to the period of 
reformation, their first estate is the best. " He 
that will not apply new remedies," says Lord 
Bacon, " must expect new evils ; for time is the 
greatest innovator ; and if time, of course, alter 
things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel 
shall not alter them to the better, what shall be 
the end ?" Therefore, there is always work for 
the Reformer to do, either in restoring, or in 
up-building, for reform is as legitimate as the 
elements of growth and purification. When- 
ever a national institution, a social form, a reli- 
gious system, has attained absolute maturity, 
so that it can unfold nothing better, it must die. 
Whenever it has lost all recuperative vigor, it 
is sentenced and worn out, as an old man, or a 
diseased body. For, in this world there is no 
climax of rest or conservation. Through every- 
thing, from a leaf to a planet, from the individ- 
ual to the state, motion is the law — motion, 
either by way of growth or decay, of renova- 



18 JOHN THE BAPTIST : 

lion or destruction. My remarks, however, at 
this time will, principally, contemplate Reform 
as a work of progress and amelioration. 

I remark, then, that the cry which is some- 
times raised against reforms — the cry, " Let 
alone ! things are well enough as they are" — is 
as foolish as it is feeble. This let-alone philoso- 
phy is no more reasonable at the present day 
than it was when first enunciated ; and if it had 
been heeded then, where would the world be 
now ? It is unavailing — for reformation is a 
law of the Universe, operating as irresistibly as 
gravitation or the tides. An Omnipotent Provi- 
dence is implicated with its march ; and so it 
works on, levelling and lifting up, grinding down 
opposition, changing the face of history, and 
unconsciously shifting the very ground beneath 
our feet. The abstraction of one age becomes 
the familiar instrument of another, the startling 
theory an undisputed fact ; and they who occu- 
py the extremest post of conservatism stand 
upon the ramparts of an obsolete heresy. 

A very common opposition to Reform, never- 
theless, springs from a kind of Quietism, that 
shrinks with dread and disgust from all agita- 
tions and conceits. This is often the case with 
men of refined tastes and literary culture. They 
are aloft in the region of thought, above the 
dust and jar of the street. They see truth in 



THE REFORMER. 19 

its absolute relations, and have but little sympa- 
thy with these partial and changeful theories. 
They are in communion with the past in its 
mellow serenity and its ripe results, and dislike 
the crudity of the present. They are sensitive, 
and recoil from these abrupt and angular forces. 
They have a clear insight, and see all the objec- 
tions that are involved. They perceive the 
ludicrous side of things, and are ready with a 
cynical sneer, or a pleasant jest. They laugh 
at all this noise about " Liberty and Equality" — 
at tri-colored cockades and temperance medals. 
But Quietism finds room, also, in a very differ- 
ent quarter — among comfortable men with 
plenty of beef and coal, whose ideas are not the 
most fruitful, and whose mental perception is 
somewhat misty, but who hold tight to what they 
do see — who make up in obstinacy what they 
lack in knowledge, and with whom strong asser- 
tion stands in lieu of logic. Fenced in as they 
are against sharp necessities, and well to do in 
the world, they cannot discern the use of all 
this agitation — they do not see but things are as 
near right as they can be, and they class to- 
gether and denounce all reformers indiscrimi- 
nately, as "radicals" and "fanatics." And 
yet, perhaps one rod from the Quietist thinker, 
or the Quietist eater, some pale mother drains 
the last drop of sustenance to moisten the lips 



20 JOHN THE BAPTIST : 

of a dying infant ; some husband and father 
reels home like a demon to his trembling and 
destitute family, some child's soul is seething in 
the lowest pit of evil, some woman's heart of 
virtue is struggling between gold and despair, 
some man is buffeted by starvation into crime, 
and all around a tempted and paralytic human- 
ity sends up inarticulate groans to heaven. Ah ! 
men with cool heads and fat larders can philoso- 
phize and denounce ; but it is a different thing 
with those upon whom misery presses with a 
cincture of iron, through whose veins passion 
runs like lava, for whom in their moral weak- 
ness vice opens its doors, and whose heads are 
canopied with curses. And we can easily see 
why some who have witnessed these and. other 
forms of guilt and wrong, will agitate — will cry 
out " Reform !" And if others would drop the 
kaleidoscope of curious speculation and look 
around with their naked eyes — if they would 
turn from their faces in the cheerful fire to the 
faces in the crowd — they too, perhaps, would 
find some justification for reform. If not, I 
think the veriest fanatic of change, with all his 
vituperation and eccentricity, who still feels 
stirred to speak for humanity, has a heart more 
akin to the great Baptist, nay, to him who, w T ith 
a gentler spirit, lifted up the suffering and bore 
the woes of man in his all-loving breast, than 



THE REFORMER. 21 

those who have wrought themselves into a sel- 
fish indifference, or who marvel and denounce 
in easy chairs. 

But the course of Reform is blocked not 
merely by Quietism. Self-interest is a more 
virulent adversary. These sharp discussions 
and terrible " first principles/' endanger vested 
rights and gainful customs. After all, it is 
Mammon that rules in this hour of the world, 
and takes its stand upon the past and the estab- 
lished. Mammon with its hundred hands and 
Argus eyes. Mammon with its bristling ports 
and smoking furnaces, its countless acres of 
cotton and of corn. It has levelled the castles 
and stripped off the armor of the feudal baron, 
and controls the earth with its sceptre of iron 
and of fire. With all the good to which money 
may be the incentive, surely it is the vital ele- 
ment of much that is evil. It is this that 
rules so mightily in halls of legislation, and 
draws or sheaths the sword of battle, and knots 
the slave-whip, and rents brothels, and keeps 
open gin-shops. It is this that heaps up grave- 
yards in London until the dead ooze through 
the soil, and that crams New- York with vice 
until it plagues the very air. Reformer ! you 
require indeed the vigor of him who came with 
raiment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle, 
in order that you may grapple with this steel- 



22 JOHN THE BAPTIST : 

hardened, golden-headed power. Do you think 
to force away these vested rights,with abstrac- 
tions ? Will you try to shut up gambling-saloons 
and bar-rooms, with the plea of " humanity ?" 
Shall the Apostle Paul preach on board a slave- 
ship, or Christ be heard on a field of battle ? 
No : Money is the ideal. Interest makes right. 
Those beautiful lessons — " Love one another" — 
"All men are brethren" — "God is the Father 
of all" — are very well for Sundays and for the 
Fourth of July ; but, surely, they were never 
meant for practical application — especially, 
where they touch our gain. If reform involves 
pecuniary loss, if estates do not flourish so well 
in the West Indies, or buildings do not rent so 
high in New- York, that argument is sufficient. 
To all this the Reformer can reply — " There is 
a higher scale of value in God's universe than 
dollars and cents. There is an absolute Right, 
and all conventional falsehoods must shrivel 
before it. There is a Kingdom of Heaven, and 
it shall yet come in the earth. Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make his paths straight." 

But objections which are urged against these 
special and organized Reforms from a Religious 
point of view, are worthy of different conside- 
ration. For instance, it is said that Reforms 
must begin irom within, and not from without ; 
that individual holiness is the germ of all exter- 



THE REFORMER. 23 

nal and social good. And nothing is more true 
than that all reforms are superficial and incom- 
plete without personal regeneration. Still, there 
is utility in working both from the circumfer- 
ence and the centre. Sometimes, it is neces- 
sary to break up a crust of bodily suffering and 
of mental ignorance, in order that the way to 
the heart may be cleared for spiritual influences. 
This appears to have been one of Christ's 
methods. He hearkened to the cry of pain, he 
touched the blind eye and the withered limb, as 
the most pressing necessity, and leaving these 
benefits to do their work as spiritual agents. 
And they accomplished that work. The un- 
sealed eye turned to him and discovered more 
than a temporal Deliverer. The cured leper 
was smitten with gratitude, and returned to 
praise. Thus, temporal benefits induced reli- 
gious results. And so it may prove with the 
achievements of modern reform. The poor, the 
down-trodden, and the ignorant, cry for relief 
from their most pressing wants — from that evil 
of which, for the time, they are the most vividly 
conscious. And in lifting their burden, we leave 
the spirit free to holier ministries. Nay, in 
that very work of up-lifting and of temporal 
relief, we touch the springs of religious influ- 
ence. 

But, again, it may be said that the objects of 



24 JOHN THE BAPTIST : 

those reforms are well enough ; but that the 
mode is objectionable ; that these separate and 
specific organizations are performing nothing 
more than the legitimate work of the Church, 
and therefore a work which should be done oijy 
in its name, and from its sanctions. Now I will 
not pause to discuss the lawful sphere of the 
Church ; but I would observe that no good work 
is foreign to the interests of Religion. When 
Christ was told of one who had performed mira- 
cles though he was not one of his followers, he 
replied — " Forbid him not, for there is no man 
which shall do a miracle in my name, that can 
lightly speak evil of me." Perhaps, if the 
Church would thoroughly perform its mission, 
these separate movements would not be needed. 
But they are needed. And shall we forbid those 
who apply the Spirit of Christ to the wants of 
the world, in any way, because they adopt an 
independent form ? There cannot be too many 
agencies of Christianity. They are all its co- 
workers, and not its rivals. 

Still, something is to be said on the other side. 
And, first, in reference to the connection be- 
tween Reform and Religion. I observe, then, 
that if any one exaggerates the claims of Re- 
form — if he maintains it as a substitute for 
Christianity, and as an improvement upon it — 
he attributes to the stream the virtues of the 



THE REFORMER. 25 

fountain ; he ascribes to the arteries the central 
function of the heart. For, from Christianity- 
beats the great pulse of this world's hope. There 
are times, even now, when a good man's trust 
will totter as he contemplates the colossal forms 
of wrong — as he beholds the mystery of iniquity 
sweeping forward. And he requires something 
stronger than speculation, or intuition, to fix his 
confidence. He needs to feel that the promises 
in this old Book are not fictitious — he needs the 
hope which springs out of the fact that Christ 
has walked our earth and shown us the Omnipo- 
tence of Goodness and the Face of God. And 
from this the noblest reformers have gathered 
their strength. Custom is strong, policy is strong, 
and the power of money is strong. Sin, like a 
swart Cyclops, ever busy, forges no unskilful 
weapons, and those which must meet these — the 
shield of Faith and the sword of Prayer — can 
be drawn from no terrestrial armory. 

Nor should we, on the other hand, regard 
Christianity as nothing more than a system of 
Reform. I use the word in its ordinary accep- 
tation. The whole of Christianity is not ex- 
pressed in social duty, or in temporal relief. A 
man may be a Reformer, and yet not completely 
a Christian. We have responsibilities God- 
ward as well as man- ward. We are under obli- 
gations to our own souls as well as to the world. 
2 



26 JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

And perhaps there is a tendency in our modern 
reforms to draw away the individual from his 
own personality, and to absorb him in the mass, 
so that he is led to consider Religion and social 
duty as exact equivalents, and that the whole 
order of life is but a manual of benevolent 
deeds. Thus he is attracted from the discipline 
of his own heart, from private meditation, obe- 
dience, and prayer. I know it is said that we 
not only show love to God, but best nourish 
that love, by loving man ; but this only proves 
that these sentiments are reciprocal ; and if a 
lack of outward indicates a lack of upward 
love, neither, on the other hand, can our affec- 
tions become expansive without being reverent 
and intense. John the Baptist mused in the 
desert before he went into the crowd. It was 
the voice of one who knew well his own soul, 
that cried so earnestly to others — " Repent !" 
Indeed, one must have this personal, religious 
vitality, this inner strength, continually renewed 
before he can truly lift up others ; ere he can 
cherish genuine courage, humility, and fortitude. 
The experience of his heart must be the life of 
his work. He must pluck the beam from his 
own eye, or he cannot see clearly to take out 
the mote from his brother's. I do not say this 
to encourage selfishness "even as to personal sal- 
vation, or to contribute a plea for indolent and 



THE REFORMER. 27 

disingenuous conservatism. But I utter it as a 
truth that is much needed in our age of associa- 
ted action and outward bustle — an age which 
has so much to say about " Liberty, Equality 
and Fraternity/ 5 that we are likely to lean out 
too far from our own personality, and from the 
real centre of all true reform — personal religion. 
And, while every genuine reformer is religious, 
I repeat, Religion is something more than Re- 
form. Reform would bind man to man ; Reli- 
gion would likewise reconcile man to God. 
Reform seeks to adjust man to the world ; Re- 
ligion would lift him above it. Reform would 
deliver him from poverty and oppression ; 
Religion enables him to bear these — yea, to 
wring strength from weakness, and riches from 
misfortune, and victory from death. John the 
Baptist was but the herald of the Redeemer, 
and, in some respects — contrasting Reform with 
Christianity as a whole — we may say — " It is 
not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of 
that Light." 

But other strictures may be applied to some 
of our modern Reformers. In the first place, 
their work appears to be, in the main, destruct- 
ive. They are zealous for dislocating, and 
tearing down ; but exhibit no plan of edification. 
As Carlyle says of Voltaire, they have " a torch 
for burning, but no hammer for building." Now 



28 john the baptist: 

the great idea involved in the very word — " Re- 
form/' is not de-struction but con-struction. 
Not only the removal of a thing, but the substi- 
tution of something better. Men will stick by an 
established wrong, rather than cast loose upon 
uncertainties. 

Again, Reform may become a bigoted and 
exclusive affair — a mere cant-word. It may be 
set forth as though it were all, and must be ac- 
complished to the hazard of everything else. 
But there are other claims. And when Reform 
is dinned into our ears, without regard to place 
or time, it nauseates. By a law of our nature, 
we grow sick of reiteration and extremes, in al- 
most any instance ; and then re-action takes 
place. Besides, our Reformers sometimes get 
cross and abusive. They seem not to perceive 
that radical changes cannot be rapid — that no 
reformation can be abrupt — but they fret and 
rail at opposition, and express their love and 
good-will snappingly. The milk of their philan- 
thropy is mixed with vinegar. Certainly, truth 
should be strenuous and bold ; but the strongest 
things are not always the noisiest, as any one 
may see who compares scolding with logic. 
They are apt to be uncharitable, too, and unjust. 
They judge motives, and hastily conclude that 
every one who does not work in their way is a 
time-server, or is bribed by his fat position. Ap- 



THE REFORMER. 29 

parently, they do not consider that conduct is 
not always a test of the degree of depravity. 
They should allow for a man's moral stand- 
point. He may not see just as they do. He 
may be under influences of education and of 
temperament, which they do not recognise. Be- 
cause he does this, or that, it does not necessa- 
rily follow 7 that he is shamelessly wicked, but 
only, perhaps, that his moral plane is not high, 
or broad, or free from an unconscious bias of 
self-interest. A man's judgment, too, may differ 
from theirs without casting an imputation upon 
his character, or his actual readiness to do good. 
The Reformer, too, sometimes becomes teasing 
and microscopic in his scruples ; pompous, all- 
sufficient, and irreverent. Sometimes he takes a 
little to eccentricity, apparently as a wholesome 
rebuke to society, or an expression of his spon- 
taneity and contempt. But simple-mindedness 
and self-reliance are not necessarily associated 
with an outlandish tunic or a long beard, and 
such things may remind us of Diogenes on Pla- 
to's carpet. 

But, after we have exhausted all our criticism, 
still remains the legitimacy of true, earnest, up- 
building Reform. Still we feel that men are 
needed who shall tread in the steps of John the 
Baptist. If we ascend into the region of the 
absolute, we may detect some fault in every 



30 JOHN THE BAPTIST : 

merely human character — some excess here, 
some defect there. But when we consider such 
a character in its relative bearings, we may dis- 
cern its fitness in being just what it is. " Wis- 
dom is justified of all her children/' said Jesus. 
So we should expect that the Reformer's cha- 
racter will be somewhat angular and harsh, 
for he has to rub against sharp points. We 
should expect that his blows would be hard, 
for he has to strike upon stubborn oppositions. 
Your finical man, can do but little in pierc- 
ing the thick-skinned indifference and selfish- 
ness of the world. God's work is carried on 
by oscillations ; now the truth swings to this ex- 
treme, now to that; and between, He weaves 
His steady and perfect plan. The Reformer 
must press his point strongly in order to arouse 
attention. It will not do to whine, or plead, or 
go mincingly. He feels that he must fire no 
blank cartridges, but bullets. He has no time 
to weigh and smooth his speech. Every sen- 
tence must be a volley, and every word a shot. 
As for the great Baptist, he was radical in his 
work. He did not dally with things. He was 
for laying " the axe at the root of the tree." He 
did not temporize. He spoke of the sins of his 
own age. Nor was his speech vague and gen- 
eral. He spoke directly to the people, to the 
publicans, to the soldiers. He turned to the 



THE REFORMER. 31 

Pharisees and the Sadducees, and exclaimed, — 
" O generation of vipers !" He rebuked a king 
—though he died for it — and said — " It is not 
lawful for thee to have her." 

If such, then, is the character of true Reform, 
what relation has it to us ? How are we affected 
by the movements of the present age ? Do we 
recognise their claims upon us ; or do we stand 
apart in a cold and isolated selfishness ? Do we 
throw up against the march of human meliora- 
tion our own interests and sins ? 

Or, if w r e are engaged in helping forward 
these Reforms, do we realize that the profound- 
est reformation is personal ? Nay, that we can 
give to others only what we have in ourselves ? 
Have we heard that voice, as it were, crying to 
us from the wilderness, and saying, " Repent" — 
and, by heeding it, have we endeavored in our- 
selves to advance the Kingdom of Heaven ? 



HEROD : 

THE SENSUALIST. 



2* 



THE SENSUALIST. 35 



II. 

HEROD: THE SENSUALIST. 

— Herod being tetrarch of Galilee. 

Luke ill. 1. 

The personage spoken of here was Herod 
Antipas, the son of that Herod who slew the in- 
nocents, and who is known in history as " Herod 
the Great." The dominions of the latter were 
divided at his death, when the elder brother, Ar- 
chelaus, received the kingdom of Judea, and 
Antipas the tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea. 
Antipas, however, was dissatisfied with this al- 
lotment, being desirous of the kingly title, which 
at one time his father had intended to bequeath 
him. Accordingly, he went to Rome for the 
purpose of supplanting Archelaus. But his ef- 
forts proved ineffectual, and the testament of 
Herod the Great was sustained by the Emperor 
Augustus. It was during this journey that he 
met and became enamored of Herodias, the wife 
of his half-brother, Herod-Philip. Upon his re- 
turn home he married her, she, in violation of 



36 HEROD : 

the Jewish law, divorcing her first husband. 
Herod himself was already married to the 
daughter of Aretas, an Arabian prince, who, 
justly indignant at this new connection, left his 
court, and returned to her father. This con- 
duct, with some other disputes, created a war 
between Herod and Aretas, in which the former 
was forced to apply for the help of the Romans. 
It is hardly necessary to say that this also was 
the act for w r hich John the Baptist rebuked 
Herod, and which cost the brave Reformer his 
liberty and his life. This, however, was not the 
only case in which Herodias was his evil genius. 
Stung with envy at the royal honors bestowed 
upon her own brother, Herod Agrippa, she in- 
cited Antipas to undertake another journey to 
Rome for the purpose of obtaining the kingly 
title. Agrippa, however, not only defeated his 
object, but preferred against him charges of trea- 
son. Antipas was stripped of his possessions, 
banished to Lyons, and finally into Spain, where 
he died. 

In the Gospels, Herod appears in connection 
both with John and with Jesus. His conduct 
with the former has already been referred to. 
Our Savior, as belonging to Galilee, was brought 
before him just previous to his crucifixion. In 
these instances we catch but glimpses of him, 
to be sure ; yet they are sufficient to betray cer- 



THE SENSUALIST. 37 

tain prominent and unmistakable lineaments of 
character. He is not, perhaps, to be styled a 
monster of wickedness, nor was his temper so 
ferocious and stern as that of his great father — 
great in achievements and in crime. He would 
appear rather, to have been of an easy and lux- 
urious disposition, lacking in moral courage and 
in energy, yet when aroused by the solicitations 
of voluptuousness, or of ambition, capable of 
great enterprises and of cruel deeds. He was 
not without intellectual sharpness and some mo- 
ral sense ; but on the whole, he stands as a full 
illustration of that class of men whose motives 
are of the flesh and the world ; who, regardless 
of conscience, or of the verities of religion, 
swing at impulse ; who, jarred, it may be, for a 
moment by some serious thought or flushed by 
better feelings, live as creatures of passion and as 
beings of the hour. In short, Herod was a Sen- 
sualist. His highest law was lust. In obedience 
to this, he plotted and he loved, he revelled and 
he slew, he mingled blood and wine. As passion 
prompted, he tore asunder the most sacred rela- 
tions, he mocked at the most serious things, he 
disregarded the best man's life. In the ease of 
luxury and of temperament, he may have exhib- 
ited generous qualities, but these w r ould seem to 
have been merely impulsive. Luke refers to ma- 
ny evils which he had done. He wore the light 



38 HEROD : 

robes of the Epicurean over red hands and a vo- 
luptuous heart. It is probable that he was a 
Sadducee, recognising no good for man higher 
than this earth, and drawing no sanction and no 
hope from beyond the grave. 

Herod, then, fitly represents the Sensualist.* 
Not that each one of this class exactly resembles 
him, or that he was in every respect like any 
other. The general term Sensualism compre- 
hends a variety — all those who are fascinated by 
the mere externals of life ; and all those in whom 
the higher nature has sunk down into the appe- 
tites, until they have actually become assimilated 
to the gross materiality of the world ; deadened 
and impotent portions of its dust and its mire. 
It shows itself after the type of Tiberias and af- 
ter the type of Rousseau. Now it is joined to a 
sophistical sentimentalism, and now it is the 
avowed conclusion of a desperate and skeptical 
philosophy. There it is the coarse pleasure of 
an animal nature, here the headlong reaction of 
a strong intellect and a perverted will. It blos- 
soms in an exuberant greenness and an exuber- 
ant rowdyism. The school-boy of to-day, to- 
morrow emerges from the chrysalis of satchel 
and apron, a butterfly of fashionable vice and 
impudence, cane, cigar, moustache, and all, am- 
bitious of a town reputation, and striving with 
gosling audacity to imitate the manners of an 



THE SENSUALIST. 39 

adept. And then come a large class who alter- 
nate between a swift horse and a brandy-bottle — 
who, in fact, present a parody or perversion of 
true life. For they subvert reason and crown 
the appetites. They give their evanescent 
thoughts to serious matters and their most stre- 
nuous efforts to light ones. While, with an ec- 
centricity apparent in no other object in nature 
except the night-blooming Cereus, they open at 
dark and keep shady during the day — rounding 
off what they call " life", by lopping against the 
lamp-posts at midnight and going to bed with a 
headache in the morning. 

The great danger of sensualism exists in its 
association with other elements which, while 
they temper its grossness, do not alter its essen- 
tial nature nor prevent its control. Thus we 
know that it is often mixed with many generous 
qualities, and that the very impulses which 
plunge a man into vice appear with a free heart 
and an open hand. And if we set off this co- 
pious good humor against some sour, scrimping, 
granite-faced specimen of self-righteousness, it 
may compare favorably. But we perceive the 
difference between a genuine virtue and that sa- 
lient impulsiveness, that flabby sentimentalism, 
which may consort with a sensual habit. We 
find that the good nature of such a man is slip- 
shod, his kindness is the fermentation of feelings 



40 herod : 

that have grown mellow with the hour, and, in 
fine, the real nature of sensualism is betrayed in 
a " good heartedness" that vibrates between jol- 
lity and the irritability of unstrung nerves, that 
pours , out all its gaiety in boon-companionship 
and brings to the hearth-stone the lees of de- 
bauch. 

Again, sensualism exhibits a most sad and de- 
ceptive phase when it is blended with great in- 
tellectual qualities. From the fact that men are 
indisposed to think evil of those who have inter- 
ested and delighted them, and whose names are 
house-hold words upon their lips, and because, 
for the time at least, defects of character are 
lost in the splendor of performance, combined 
with the too common connection between rare 
talents and self-indulgence, sensualism has come 
to be regarded as almost congenital with a gift- 
ed intellect — as one of those "infirmities" which 
genius transmutes and glorifies, instead of a des- 
potic fault by which it is dragged down and de- 
throned. Many a stripling considers his ex- 
cesses as the crackling of the ethereal flame, the 
dross of inspiration, and as essential to the part 
which he has assumed as the "eye in a fine 
frenzy rolling." It generally happens, however, 
that his achievements are limited to the darker 
hemisphere of genius. He exhibits little of 
Sheridan save his recklessness, and nothing of 



THE SENSUALIST. 41 

Byron except the gin and water. It has been 
said that " the defects of great men are the con- 
solation of the dunces." But they are also the 
sorrow of the truly wise, who in the very pro- 
portions of the achievement detect the great- 
ness of the aberration. And it is idle to say 
that there is any necessary connection between 
the achievement and the aberration. While 
Milton sings to us from the gates of Paradise, 
we know that the essential inspiration of ge- 
nius flows not from turbid fountains, and while 
Newton treads upward among the stars, it is 
evident that might and comprehensiveness of 
mind need not the feculent leaven of passion. 

Nay, as the great man is not always the com- 
plete man, neither is genius in slavery to sense 
transcendent genius. The head of Jupiter does 
not glorify the frame of Silenus, but makes a 
more hideous deformity. If angels stoop from 
visions of more than earthly beauty to spells of 
less than earthly worth, they are but fallen an- 
gels, mingling divine utterances with the bab- 
blings of madness, and the madness is not the 
divineness. And often this is distinguished from 
normal genius by the uses to which it turns its 
power. The one employs imagination to create 
foul thoughts and unseemly symbols even from 
things most innocent. The other draws a preg- 
nant moral from the most insignificant objects, 



42 HEROD : 

reveals beauty in the homeliest forms, and lights 
up the waste places of our humanity with hope 
and with faith. In the one case, imagination 
rises like smoke from the pit, enveloping all 
things with a lurid splendor, and distorting them 
into prurient shapes. In the other, it falls like 
dew from heaven, enriching the most common 
and glorifying the most obscure. In the one in- 
stance it mounts above the taint and fetter of 
sense with a joyful liberty; in the other, its aw- 
ful power is infected and taken captive by its 
associations. And, when we consider the no- 
ble natures which it has disguised with beggary, 
the strength which it has dissolved into a pitiful 
weakness, the wit whose sparkles it has quench- 
ed upon desolate death-beds, the eloquence that 
it has struck into madness, the right royal rea- 
son which it has tricked out with a fantastical 
folly, like Lear with his garland, the imperial 
light of intellect cannot blind us to the essential 
servility of that spirit over which appetite ex- 
tends its fiery leash. The very brightness of 
the flame, shows more awful the ruin and dese- 
cration of the shrine. 

It is hardly necessary to say that sensualism 
is consistent with refined tastes and habits. In- 
deed, it is apt to be rife among two classes — 
the very lowest and the very highest. On the 
one hand, the motives to enterprise being clog- 



THE SENSUALIST. 43 

ged by plenty, nothing occupies the mind but 
luxurious desires. On the other, the springs of 
exertion being paralyzed by despair, man sinks 
sullenly into the brute. But, while I would up- 
hold no invidious distinctions, and charge no- 
thing upon classes, as such, I may be permitted 
to say that the chief danger to society, in this 
direction, comes not from the rank and fester- 
ing dens of cities, not from the loathsome spawn 
that clings to the great hull of the ship of state, 
but from those whose propriety is but the thin 
foil of conventionalism, and whose morality is 
only the exhalation of an aesthetic culture. The 
most dangerous forms of sensualism are not 
wrapped in vulgarity, but tread upon soft car- 
pets and breathe perfumed air. It lurks in idle- 
ness, luxury, and facile customs. Of all sen- 
sualists the worst is that moral sepulchre within 
whose gilded exterior the life of principle has 
crumbled darkly away, the man whose tiger- 
propensities are disguised with a velvet tread 
and a silver tongue — whose real nature, into 
which has entered the curse of withered inno- 
cence and broken hearts, is hidden by the glitter 
of accomplishments, and each accomplishment 
a treacherous lie. 

With individuals and with nations the very 
extreme of refinement is often the hectic of 
moral disease — the flush through which ripeness 



44 HEROD : 

passes into rottenness. Sometimes, the man has 
been too much educated, drawn out into mere 
attitude and expression, so that there is not left 
in him core enough for virtue to grow upon. In 
the thoroughness of his rebound from swinish 
ignorance and coarseness, he has gone clear 
around the circle, and returned to the point of 
sensualism again, upon a higher plane, but in a 
degree no less intense. His whole nature has 
refined itself away, until he has become in life 
a mere taster and percipient. 

And, yet once more, Sensualism is compati- 
ble with a kind of moral sensitiveness. But this 
is vague and fitful. We are told that Herod re- 
cognised the excellence of John, and he seems 
to have been somewhat moved by his appeals. 
Certainly. The Sensualist honors virtue — he 
respects goodness; though in a very abstract 
way. Yet it exerts but little influence against 
the force of habit and the head- tide of passion. 
Perhaps as Herod looked upon that stern pro- 
phet, with his coat of camel's hair, and his lea- 
thern girdle, he felt for a moment how much 
more royal was John with the might of virtue 
and the majesty of truth, than himself with his 
throne of pow r er and his palace of ease. But 
the next glance of beauty, the next flow of wine, 
swept all this away. And thus it often is with 
a man of this class. There are times when 



THE SENSUALIST. 45 

virtue beams upon him with something of its 
true glory, and he feels the excellence of that 
better way and the guilt and folly of his own 
course. He goes to church. He is moved by 
the discourse. He weeps. But it takes no vi- 
tal hold of him. It passes like a wave across 
his impulsive nature. And, in fact, the real ob- 
ject of his being in that place is indistinct or 
unknown to him. He goes there, perhaps, be- 
cause he has no where else to spend the time. 
Or he goes out of respect to some old habit. 
Perhaps some mother's memory leads him there. 
He cannot throw off that gentle restraint. The 
Sabbath morning will not look to him like any 
other. He cannot on that day, plunge without 
some faint reluctance into any pursuit. He 
thinks of the old days at home. He recalls the 
fragments of a prayer ; he looks vaguely over a 
neglected bible ; and he turns his feet towards 
the church. Or he goes there to be amused — 
to have his intellect excited and his ear tic- 
kled — to enjoy the pungency of satire, the cogen- 
cy of logic, or the sweep of eloquence — as he 
would go, next day, to the theatre. He has no 
religious interest in the services. His thought 
does not rise with the prayer, but wanders 
abroad while it is uttered, and he is glad when 
it is done. He does not realize the themes of 
the preacher in their practical and personal ap- 



46 HEROD : 

plications. He does not listen as a thirsty spirit 
for the purling of Siloa's fountains — as a sinner 
needing salvation. No humility, no penitence, 
no strong uplifted resolutions, mark his experi- 
ence in the church. I repeat, he comes to be 
amused ; and as to the great realities of Reli- 
gion, they have no more place in his daily life, 
no more vividness to his soul's vision, than the 
peculiarities of some distant planet. Nay, per- 
haps he cannot make much of Religion any 
way ; and finds it convenient to jest and cavil 
at what he does not or will not understand. 
This was the case with Herod. Christ stood 
before him, and he was glad — glad, not because 
he felt that he was the Great Teacher, the Re- 
deemer who could deliver even him, the guilty 
king, the adulterous kinsman, the blood-stained 
despot, from his sin, and give him the blessing 
of immutable peace and the treasure of eternal 
life — but because he had heard much of him, 
and hoped to see some wonder wrought by him. 
There he sat — the great Herod, quite ready to 
be amused. Ready to see any new thing that 
might be done in this old world. Patronising 
and condescendfng with his hard, sensual eyes. 
But with no consciousness as to who stood be- 
fore him — of what he could do — of the real op- 
portunity that was thus afforded him. He could 
make nothing of that majestic Peasant. He 



THE SENSUALIST. 47 

could not see into that grand and holy realm of 
thought which beamed from the meek counte- 
nance of Jesus and sealed his lips. So he and 
his soldiers mocked him, arrayed him in a gor- 
geous robe, and sent him back to Pilate. The 
feelings which the Sensualist entertains for Re- 
ligion, and his conceptions of it, often turn out 
like this. A decent observance, and a few fitful 
deeds of kindness, cannot hide the essential evil 
which enthrals him. If it be true that, upon 
some points, he cherishes a quick sense of ho- 
nor, it is not held in deference to the absolute 
right, but to a conventional standard. Herod 
was one of these " men of honor." He kept 
his oath. But it was a bloody oath, and he kept 
it in spite of remorse. Still, in the ecstacy of 
voluptuous impulse he had spoken it, and when 
with a reeling brain he looked around upon the 
rough and sneering faces at his table, he dared 
not recall it, and he carried it out though it took 
off the head of an innocent and holy man. 
How much respect, then, to absolute principle 
was there in Herod's conduct? Thus, often, 
the honor of the sensualist is an honor that he 
holds not from any moral sanction, but in fear 
of his associates and of the customs of his class. 
It is the principle of the duellist and the game- 
ster. He will pay his " debts of honor," but at 
the expense of how many other obligations ? At 



48 HEROD : 

the expense of what pledges and duties — of 
what claims that bind him as a husband and a 
father, of what dear affections and what sacred 
things ? All these count as nothing with our 
man of honor. But could the gaming-saloon 
bear witness to the way in which these debts of 
honor are paid, and testify of all the cost, me- 
thinks every beam in the gorgeous ceiling would 
utter a groan, and the pictured walls would 
break out with a ghastly sweat. 

But, under all these modifications of sensual- 
ism, there appears a certain general character, 
which assigns the same grouping to those whose 
exterior life is wide apart. In every form of it, 
the higher life defers to the lower ; to the pas- 
sions of the flesh and the dominion of the world. 
Now it is not necessary to say, that the appe- 
tites have a lawful sphere. They acquire an 
unnatural vivacity under a microscopic scru- 
tiny, or morbid repression, as well as in the 
sweep of indulgence. The Ascetic errs as 
much as the Sybarite. We must render to the 
sensual sphere of existence that which belongs 
to it. But the evil with the sensualist is this — 
he recognises no superior claim, whether it 
speaks from his own nature, or from above. 
His ideal corresponds with his actual. That 
which his heart conceives he realizes. The 
bounding pulses of desire ' are sated with 



THE SENSUALIST. 49 

instant gratification. Sensualism too, is essen- 
tially selfish. It is selfishness in a compound de- 
gree — selfishness within self, casting down and 
consuming the very nature in which it abides. 
The fair qualities with which it may be associ- 
ated at any time, have no root of stability — no 
gift of genius will it not pervert — no generous 
sentiment will it not disgrace. In fine, as the 
crowning trait of the sensualist, he lacks faith 
in the great idea of self-discipline — faith that 
the despotism of the body should not, and, if 
we will, cannot conquer spiritual force. In his 
view of things, all sanctions stand secondary to 
inclination ; impulse is instinct, and passion is 
law, and life runs in the grooves of a blind ne- 
cessity. Under every garb a broad line distin- 
guishes him from the m*an who lives with the 
true aim of existence. Sleeping upon roses, or 
grovelling at the chariot- wheels, he is still a piti- 
ful slave ; while the other is an Olympian, not 
yet victorious, but striving, leaping from the 
dust and contending for the mastery. 

But, in treating of Sensualism, we are to 
consider not merely what it is intrinsically, or 
as it appears to the world, but as it affects the 
Sensualist himself. I remark, then, that there 
are likely to occur periods when, to some de- 
gree, he will be awakened to a consciousness of 
his condition. Even with him, life will not 
3 



50 herod : 

prove an uninterrupted holiday. His pleasures 
will sometimes grow tasteless, and bitterness 
lurk in his draught. For, it is idle to deny that 
the Sensualist has enjoyment, in his way. But 
we have seen how it is pursued in disregard to 
higher claims, and consists in the gratification 
of mere impulse and passion. And the sensual- 
ist cannot entirely rid himself of his manhood. 
If he neglects the great purpose of his being, he 
cannot do so without remonstrance. He has a 
moral nature, fitful as are its manifestations. 
He has some faith in an immortal world, boast- 
ful as may be his skepticism. He has to argue 
down his conscience with sophistries; he has 
to smother it with jests. He plunges recklessly 
from its sharp entreaties into gratification. It 
would not do for him "to stop and listen. He 
does not wish to hear that voice. And just in 
proportion as his mind has been cultivated, and 
his moral sense enlighteped, he must struggle ere 
he can become the absolute slave of self-indul- 
gence. Nay, perhaps we may say he never be- 
comes so. He is never wholly at ease ; never 
feels that it is quite right to live as though pas- 
sion w T ere the highest law, and the world and the 
flesh all. And, in addition to this general unea- 
siness, there are times when he will be startled 
at the great realities of existence — times when 
the thought of God and duty, of wasted hours 



THE SENSUALIST. 51 

and evil deeds, will rise up and appal him. No- 
thing in the whole history of Herod is more 
striking, than that exclamation which burst from 
his lips — " It is John !" Epicurean as he was, 
Sadducee as he professed to be, those three 
words laid bare the secret of his soul. In a mo- 
ment of impulse, he had killed one whom he 
had acknowledged to be "a just man and a 
holy." Apparently, his temporary regret was 
drowned in revelry and wine. But the deed 
stuck fast in his memory, and kept rallying his 
flagging conscience ; and, though he denied all 
faith in a future life, when he heard of the mir- 
acles wrought by Jesus, see how his moral na- 
ture vindicated itself — see the ghost that haunted 
his soul starting out into vivid shape ! " It is 
John V exclaims he, " It is John ! he hath risen 
from the dead, and therefore mighty works do 
show themselves in him." No : to say nothing 
of bodily evils — of wasted strength, racking dis- 
ease, and premature death, when we look into 
the moral life of the Sensualist, fearfully evi- 
dent is it that he does not live with impunity. 

Sensualism, as involved in the philosophy of 
materialism, or as an abstract expression of the 
idea of human life, hardly requires confutation. 
The naturalist protests against the encroach- 
ment of the metaphysical or theological bias 
upon the domain of science. On the other hand, 



52 HEROD : 

we repel any imperious assumptions of science 
in the profounder regions of the soul. The 
great facts that lie at the foundations of morals 
and religion, are not to be decided by callipers 
and dissecting-knife. There are phenomena in 
our being not revealed in the " gospel of diges- 
tion" — there are tides and currents in human 
nature not mapped out on the globe of the brain. 
It has been well said that "the soul is larger 
than logic." Not only is it cognizant of the ob- 
jective world — the world of rock and bone, and 
quivering nerve and fluid light — but it lies in 
a hemisphere of intuition, whose solemn sweeps 
of darkness are pierced by immortal splendors. 
And, despite all the cant of "positive philoso- 
phy," and all quibbles about design, it retains, 
and ever will retain, the spontaneous conviction 
that these harmonious forms spring from an in- 
terior idea; that within this universal frame 
abides living spirit, moving it to a purpose, and 
this way and that turning its flashing wheels. 
But, as we have seen, there is no argument 
against the sensual conception of life stronger 
than that which springs up in the Sensualist's 
own experience, in his endeavors to reason out 
his position, in his attempts at self-justification, 
in a night -mare consciousness of incongruity, 
in the lightning-streams of recollection. And, 
even when sunk below all this, still, there is 



THE SENSUALIST. 53 

wanting the ease of nature and organic fitness 
— still there is the sense of lacking sense — the 
dreary sense of paralysis and loss. Like one 
who lies down in torpor among the dead, he is 
not as the dead. They rest peacefully. But 
he slumbers in a vague horror, or wakes start- 
led by ghastly shadows and the texts on the 
tombs. 

Suppose, from the comparative moderation of 
his indulgences, or the hardihood of his consti- 
tution, he is spared until late in life — peculiarly 
sad and awful must be the old age of the Sen- 
sualist. At that period, when a man's hold upon 
outward things grows infirm, his spirit may fall 
back upon its own resources, and the treasures 
of wisdom and the recollections of vanished 
times are ranged around those inner galleries 
fresh and fragrant still. Nor is his age a use- 
less burden to others. He remains yet, to enrich 
the world he is about to leave with the lesson of 
a virtuous example and the legacies of a ripe 
experience ; while faith lends a new beauty to 
his gray hairs, and from out its dim windows 
the soul sends flashes of perpetual youth. But 
upon what can the worn out sensualist fall back ? 
What riches cluster about his heart that are 
fadeless yet ? What memories can he call up 
that he would not rather have buried for ever ? 
What useful boon does he bequeath to the world 



54 herod : 

from which his feet are slipping ? Alas ! the 
great shadows are falling around him. Years 
have swept away the companions of his plea- 
sure. Yet he spends his last hours in teasing 
his senses into a paralytic zest, and the flame of 
passion, impotent and smouldering, is the only 
lamp to light him through the dark valley. 

For, finally must come the death of the Sen- 
sualist. His heart, that has been decaying for 
years, halts at last. The abused temple of his 
body grows livid and cold. The end of all he 
has delighted in is at hand. His mind in fitful 
visions quits the racked frame, and goes wan- 
dering back into that sunny world which to 
him has been so luxurious and which he shall 
see no more — or it starts upward to those great 
realities which he has treated as dreams and 
fictions. Few are there to close his dying lids ; 
for sensualism is selfish. His true friends he has 
neglected, he has cast from him. The associates 
of his gay hours do not like death-beds and trou- 
ble. Read the last moments of one of England's 
most gifted sons ; racked with disease, sick at 
heart, steeped in poverty, seized in the very 
blankets in which he lay dying, to be carried to 
a jail — while of those who had mixed with him 
in sparkling merriment, who had laughed at his 
jests, who had admired his talents, who had 
used his services, scarce one helped him, or saw 



THE SENSUALIST. 55 

him until it was too late. When all was over, 
and nothing required but outside show, then 
came a splendid funeral, and princes followed 
to the grave the statesman, orator, and wit. 
Such are the consolations of the dying sensual- 
ist — such the value of the things in which he 
has delighted and the friendships he has made. 

Not only should we consider the positive re- 
sults of sensualism ; but what is lost by it, the 
true enjoyment of life, the best use of its hours, 
and the transcendent vision and the blessed con- 
sciousness which look beyond and overcome 
the world and all its evils. This is the fallacy 
that attaches to any degree of sensualism — it 
makes this world all, and eclipses every higher 
good. A fallacy, I say, and is there a more fatal 
one than that which deludes us to satisfy our 
souls and employ our faculties with that which 
must " perish in the using ?" Recently, two 
young princes wished to see the remains of 
Gustavus Vasa, which lie in the vaults of the 
cathedral of Upsala. They obtained the con- 
sent of the king of Sweden, and the marble 
sarcophagus was opened. But there was only 
the great man's skeleton, while the silk and the 
velvet, and the brocade, were yet fresh. The 
crown was there and the sceptre, and the gol- 
den buckle, while precious stones shed a gleam 
through the ghastly chamber of the sepulchre. 



56 herod : 

And, this is the moral of all mere earthly good, 
even the highest. Its splendor decorates the 
heart that must soon cease to heave, and its 
pomp survives and mocks the mortal dust. 

My friends, though Herod has slept for ages 
in his exile-grave ! though it is eighteen-hundred 
years since that John whom he slew attained 
the martyr's palm, and the Christ whom he in- 
sulted ascended to heaven, those incidents are 
not obsolete. Those forms are not mere sha- 
dows flying over the canvas, or reflected from 
some other sphere of action. We are in the 
same world with them, and involved with the 
same realities. And for us also there are two 
ways of living — Herod's way, the luxury and 
delight of sensualism, with its disappointments 
and its end; and John's way, Christ's way — 
passing through the world, yet living above it ; 
holding sense in subjection and duty in the as- 
cendant ; doing the business of life, yet realizing 
the sanctions of God. There are these two 
ways of living ; and as sure as life itself, your 
tendencies are in the one or the other of these 
courses. Which is the true, the blessed, the 
triumphant way ? Judge ye ! 



THOMAS : 

THE SKEPTIC. 



3* 



THE SKEPTIC. 59 



III. 

THOMAS : THE SKEPTIC. 

, . . Except I shall see in bis hands the print of the nails, and 
put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand 
into his side, I will not believe. John xx. 25. 

But little is said in the New Testament re- 
specting Thomas or Didymus. We have no ac- 
count of his parentage, occupation, or place of 
birth ; though it is supposed that he was a na- 
tive of Galilee. He was chosen one of the 
twelve, and appears prominently two or three 
times in the course of the narrative. His ca- 
reer after the close of Christ's personal ministry, 
appears to be involved with the uncertainties of 
tradition. He is mentioned by Origen, Jerome, 
and other writers, and is said to have bent his 
steps to the remote East — to India, and even to 
the borders of China. But the word "India" 
is used vaguely in ancient authors, and may 
mean Ethiopia. It is said, also, that having vis- 
ited some of the islands in the Indian ocean, he 
returned to the shores of the Ganges, and that 



60 THOMAS : 

after many labors of conversion and of mir- 
acle, he was attacked by certain Brahmins, in a 
secluded place whither he had retired for the 
purpose of devotion, and shot to death with ar- 
rows. These and other traditions are probably 
more or less true ; but no doubt he did his work 
among the other apostles, and accomplished the 
mission for which he was chosen, and it is not 
incredible that, as has been conjectured, the 
traces of his labors are yet to be seen. 

But whatever may have been the personal 
history of Thomas, his character, by a few art- 
less strokes, stands out distinct and peculiar upon 
the page of the Evangelist. We see a hes- 
itating and matter-of-fact mind, in remarkable 
contrast to the confiding spirit of John, and the 
zeal of Peter. He was evidently possessed of 
courage, rectitude, and affection. When Jesus 
declared his intention of visiting Judea, not- 
withstanding the remonstrances of his disciples, 
Thomas exclaimed — " Let us also go, that we 
may die with him." But even in this instance, 
perhaps, his personal devotion to his master was 
crossed by doubts respecting his wisdom and his 
power. At the last Supper we have another 
evidence of the literal and material quality of 
his mind. He interprets Christ's reference to 
the immortal world and to his own death, as an 
Earthly and local allusion; and says — "Lord, 



THE SKEPTIC. 61 

we know not whither thou goest, and how can 
we know the way ?" But the most vivid ex- 
pression of his character appears just after the 
Resurrection, and in the instance connected 
with the text. We are told that upon our Sa- 
vior's first appearance to his disciples, Thomas 
was absent. And his natural disposition breaks 
out even in this fact. By him especially Christ's 
kingdom and reign were anticipated as material 
and temporal facts. But when he saw One 
who, as he daily expected, would confound the 
unbelief of the world by the splendor of some 
signal manifestation, bound, condemned, cruci- 
fied, sealed up in the sepulchre, to his concep- 
tion there was an end of the matter. And so 
utterly foreign to his cast of mind was the idea 
of any grander result, that, it is probable, he went 
about his business. Even the vagueness of 
hope, and the lingerings of fond expectation, 
were with him forbidden by the grave. And, 
therefore, he was not with the disciples when 
the newly risen Lord so suddenly broke upon 
them. Therefore, with a sturdy and vehement 
incredulity, he cried out — " Except I shall see in 
his hands the print of the nails, and put my fin- 
ger into the print of the nails, and thrust my 
hand into his side, I will not believe." Yet the 
meekness and patience of Jesus condescended 
to grant even this evidence, and as the apostle's 



I 

62 THOMAS : 

stubborn doubt was swept away by gushes of 
w r onder and of reverence, he mingles the gentle 
rebuke — " Be not faithless, but believing." 

I have already said, that I do not select these 
characters in the Gospels as illustrating in every 
instance characters at the present day. We 
should not forget that the unbelief of Thomas 
w r as only temporary ; we should not forget his 
conversion, and that he retained the place to 
which his Master called him, and, as we may 
believe, subsequent faithfulness. Still, from what 
is exhibited of him in the New Testament, 
and especially in his position in the text, I 
think we do him no injustice in taking him as a 
representative of the general character of the 
skeptic. 

And, in entering upon the theme thus indica- 
ted, it becomes me to say that I cannot even 
touch, much less discuss, all the topics which 
pertain to it. Such a work would of itself re- 
quire a series of discourses. Nor shall I use 
the term " skeptic' in its strict sense. Philoso- 
phical, or absolute skepticism, is very rare. It 
can only be held by men who have profoundly 
studied and subtilely analyzed the phenomena of 
psychology and of being, and therefore is not like- 
ly to prevail much among the realities of the eve- 
ry-day world. In this philosophical form, the skep- 
tic denies, or, rather, considers as untrustwor- 



THE SKEPTIC. 63 

thy, every thing — both conclusions and premises, 
the thing that is perceived and the subject that 
perceives it. He caricatures metaphysics. He 
thrives upon the contentions, the sophisms, the 
defective logic and mutable opinions of other 
men. He pits warring systems against one an- 
other, and sets them to tearing out each other's 
vitals. He accepts the process of the Idealist 
who denies the existence of matter, and of the 
Sensationalist who denies the existence of mind. 
Between these he pretends to hang balanced. 
As men do not agree, he concludes there can be 
no standard of agreement ; forgetting that they 
really do agree in much more than they differ. 
As one refutes the other, he doubts whether 
there is any absolute truth, not noticing the 
common basis upon which both rest their ap- 
peals. He points to the dark segments of mys- 
tery that interrupt the sphere of knowledge, and 
so maintains that we know nothing — not ma- 
king the distinction between incompleteness and 
delusion. " So," says he, " we can neither be- 
lieve nor disbelieve, affirm nor deny." 

As a play of the intellect, this kind of skepti- 
cism may have its place. It may do very well 
as a satire upon metaphysics. Nay, perhaps it 
is something more than a satire, and fitly ex- 
presses the futility of those inquiries and dis- 
tinctions which under this name — "metaphy- 



64 THOMAS : 

sics" — have occupied so many minds from Aris- 
totle' until now. But, whatever may be its po- 
sition, it is refuted by simple common sense. 
The skeptic himself refutes it in the very pro- 
cess by which he endeavors to justify it. He 
reasons while shaking the whole fabric of rea- 
son. He eats, though he cannot prove that 
bread which nourished him yesterday will nou- 
rish him to-day. He commits himself to slum- 
ber, though it is impossible to demonstrate that 
the bed is more substantial than his dreams. 

This kind of skepticism, moreover, is not ne- 
cessarily connected with disbelief in religion. 
Hume, it is true, was a philosophical skeptic, 
but so was Pascal. Indeed, this ground has 
sometimes been resorted to as a fortress for Re- 
ligion. Men have labored to unsettle all the 
natural foundations of knowledge in order to 
exalt the value of a supernatural Revelation. 

But I refer particularly, at this time, to what 
commonly passes under the name of skepticism, 
though it might, perhaps more justly, be termed 
unbelief. It is, at least, a position of doubt as 
to spiritual and religious truths — as to Revela- 
tion, and the higher propositions of natural the- 
ology. And I would say, in the first place, that 
there is such a thing as an honest skepticism. 
There may be an inborn proclivity, a defect in 
reasoning, or really a lack of proper evidence. 



THE SKEPTIC. 65 

Yet, in such a case, we must suppose an ear- 
nest desire to know the truth, and a stedfast en- 
deavor to find it. Let me say, moreover, that, 
to a certain degree, skepticism is a duty. The 
prerogative of reason obligates me to deliberate 
between propositions. One of the grandest fa- 
culties we possess, is the power of extricating 
truth, and he who evinces an open-mouthed 
credulity, is not only weak but false — false to 
the highest endowments and privileges of his 
manhood. In proportion to the magnitude of a 
subject, also, there is wisdom in avoiding precip- 
itate conclusions — in turning a matter around 
and letting the light stream full upon every angle 
of it. Perhaps it is well too, as a general thing, 
for a man to keep aloof from systems. It is a 
great evil in the world, that as soon as we re- 
ceive truth, we are prone to let it crystallize. 
We must frame it into a creed, and measure it 
with a ritual. Our minds get imbedded in it, 
so as to close up the avenues of fresh commu- 
nication and render it difficult to shift our posi- 
tion to higher and broader ground. Let us not 
be too ready to separate our truth from the fluent 
mass that perpetually undulates towards us. Let 
us not petrify our fragment and make it the nu- 
cleus of a party. Let us not settle down upon 
it, and hedge it in, as though it were the whole. 
The revelation of God, and of the universe, is 



66 THOMAS : 

not yet sealed. More is to break forth from 
Christianity than is now comprehended in any 
sect. And every man should be so much of a 
skeptic as always to stand in an attitude of in- 
quiry and reception. Nay, there are instances 
when skepticism betrays more genuine religious 
life than a formal profession. The man who 
strives to reach the core of things, who anx- 
iously wrestles with doubt and clasps his tempo- 
rary conviction though it makes his very heart 
bleed, and yet who beats about in blinding mist 
and cannot see, may be nearer the kingdom of 
heaven than he who mechanically wears the 
yoke of tradition, who worships in listless con- 
formity, but who cares nothing for the truth in 
itself and in whose soul that truth lies dead. 

But all this is very different from the kind of 
skepticism to which I refer, and which appears 
in various phases. Sometimes, it exists as a ca- 
villing spirit, and contents itself with proposing 
objections and springing sharp dilemmas. Some- 
times it is covered by a hollow-hearted ortho- 
doxy. Sometimes it is merely the instrument 
of youth and recklessness at a period when there 
is a craving after novelty and notoriety, and a 
chivalric delight in assaulting opinions that the 
majority hold sacred. There is a class of men, 
too, who are fond of singularity. They are 
teased and wearied by popular enthusiasm upon 



THE SKEPTIC. 67 

any subject, and if the mass should turn skeptics 
they would be quite likely to come out stanch be- 
lievers. There are also moral grounds of skep- 
ticism — a pride of intellect, a dislike of reli- 
gious restraint and discipline. But, in any 
instance, T allude to skepticism when held not 
as a wise precaution or a transition-state of 
the mind, but as a theory in which passion and 
interest are enlisted — which is to be defended 
whatever may offer — and which is not so much 
true skepticism as systematic and desperate un- 
belief. 

And, in this light, I would remark especially 
upon the unfairness of the skeptic. This may 
be illustrated by the objections which he com- 
monly urges against the New Testament. Now 
even if its claims to special inspiration be dis- 
posed of, still the Gospel remains professedly a 
Record of actual events, and as such it is enti- 
tled to the treatment which is applied to any 
other history. But no book has been so disin- 
genuously handled — so stretched and racked by 
criticism. It has undergone a microscopic scru- 
tiny. It has been dissected word by word. And 
every apparent discrepancy has been paraded 
as a triumphant refutation of its authenticity. 
Thus, it is found that Matthew describes the 
healing of a leper as having taken place before 



68 THOMAS : 

Christ entered Capernaum, while Mark and 
Luke represent it as occurring after he left that 
city. One Evangelist mentions one Gadarene 
demoniac, and another two. One says that the 
women came to the sepulchre while it was yet 
dark ; another, that they came at dawn, and 
yet another says at sunrise. But even if these 
statements could not be reconciled, does it fol- 
low that the events to which they relate did 
not take place ? Is this a fair rule ? One which 
would be legitimate in its application to any 
other circumstances? Do we acknowledge it 
as such in the transactions of every-day life? 
On the contrary, it is felt that diversity of evi- 
dence as to the incidentals of a fact, so far from 
proving the fact untrue, increases its probabil- 
ity. Smooth, rounded stories, each tallying 
with the other in every particular, present an 
aspect of fabrication. To the lookers-on, any 
transaction always shews different phases, and 
their variation upon different points only proves 
their independence. In this respect, therefore, 
the narratives in the Gospels wear the freshness 
of reality. Applying a fair test, we should say, 
that the evidence of one man, to the effect that 
a certain event took place at one hour, and the 
testimony of another to the effect that it took 
place at a later period, is surely no proof that the 
essential fact involved in both affirmations did 



THE SKEPTIC. 69 

not take place at all. On the contrary, it is 
strong demonstration that the fact did occur. 
Therefore, I repeat, it is unfair, for the skeptic 
to deny the same test in the case of the healing 
of the leper, or of the Resurrection, which he 
allows in other transactions. I do not say that 
he should not require stronger evidence in the 
case of a miracle, but that he should not repu- 
diate it because of that diversity of testimony, 
which in any other instance would be accepted 
as an additional proof. Let him stretch any 
other history upon the same rack, and apply to 
it the same requisitions, and there is scarcely a 
fact of ancient or modern times which would 
not be resolved into a fiction or a myth. Take, 
for example, the account given by different wri- 
ters of the length of Alexander the Great's reign. 
One says he reigned twelve years, another thir- 
teen, another thirty-five. Now, if we adopt the 
skeptic's method of dealing with the New Tes- 
tament, we must conclude that the illustrious 
Macedonian never reigned at all. One author 
says that John Milton was born in 1606, one 
in 1608, and one in 1609. Was there no such 
person, then, as John Milton ? One historian 
says, that, at the battle of Bunker's hill, "the 
British moved to the attack with rattling drums, 
and incessant discharges of muskets and great 
guns!" but another says — "they came stealing 



70 THOMAS : 

on, as silent as the grave." Moreover, what 
historians usually call "the battle of Bunker's 
Hill," did not take place on Bunker's, but on 
Breed's Hill. # Was there no such battle, then ? 
Does that tall granite monument perpetuate a 
mere legend ? Was it reared upon romance ? 
It is no more palpable than that solid monument 
of Christianity which stands before us to-day. 

Now, in any other circumstances, such objec- 
tions would be regarded as quibbles ; and yet 
the skeptic urges them as valid arguments 
against the New Testament. I style such a me- 
thod unfair, therefore, and indicative not of 
open inquiry but of obstinate theory. The 
Bible is not to be judged in all respects like a 
history composed, since history became a sci- 
ence ; but take that old volume, which has sur- 
vived the decay of ages and the shocks of revo* 
lution, whose every book is an epoch, whose 
every leaf almost turns over a century, and 
whose simple narratives open to us the experi- 
ence and link us to the sympathies of our com- 
mon nature four thousand years ago ; take it, 
and apply to its records the same tests you ap- 
ply to Polybius or Livy, and the skeptic, if his 
skepticism is honest, will find less room for his 
cavils and his sneers. 

In the second place, I object to the dogmatism 

* See Thayer on Infidelity. 



THE SKEPTIC. 71 

of the skeptic. Sifting his assertions, in many 
instances they amount essentially to this — that 
he will believe in nothing wonderful — nothing 
that transcends his philosophy. His course with 
the miracles is a fair illustration of this. He 
will not believe them because they are outside 
his experience, and, as he says, " a violation of 
the taws of nature." Now this position is alto- 
gether dogmatic and unwarranted. In the first 
place, the skeptic makes his experience the test 
of all possibility ; and, in the next place, he vir- 
tually assumes that he is acquainted with all the 
laws of nature. Yet, while it is true that a 
miracle demands greater evidence than an ordi- 
nary occurrence, the united experience of the 
race cannot demonstrate the impossibility of 
such a thing. Singularly enough, Hume, who ' 
presses this argument of experience against mir- 
acles as an unbroken testimony in the past, sub- 
tilely urges the fact that we cannot make that 
experience valid for a single conclusion in the 
future. We can give no reason, he says, why 
because bread has nourished us to-day, it should 
do so to-morrow. But if it is possible that this 
chain of experience may be interrupted, is it not 
possible that it has been ? It is simply a ques- 
tion of evidence, and yet, while he is forced to 
admit this, the secret ground of the skeptic is, 
that no amount of evidence would induce him 



72 THOMAS : 

to believe a miracle. But is it not the grossest 
assumption for any man to look abroad through 
the universe, and say that nothing can take 
place except according to the usual order ? If 
he believes in a God, will he maintain that the 
Creator cannot touch the springs of His own 
mechanism ? Or will he say that the Infinite 
One Himself is bound to just that method which 
science has observed ? Can he say that a mir- 
acle is a violation of those laws ? It may su- 
persede any known law — but does he know 
every law ? Who shall say that the laws of na- 
ture were violated, when the sick were healed 
at a word, or the blind by a touch ? This may 
have been merely the suppression of the com- 
mon process, and the inlet of a higher method. 

But what, after all, do we mean by " laws of 
nature ?" We mean nothing more than the 
way in which God usually works in the mate- 
rial world — we mean merely the observed me- 
thods of His Will in physical things. Strictly 
speaking, there is no such thing as a law of na- 
ture. No actual entities standing between God 
and His manifestations in the physical universe. 
He fills that universe. He touches it at every 
point. Its life is but the pulsation of His Om- 
nipresence ; its phenomena are only the attitudes 
of His thought. Shall we say, then, that He 
can never shift His method— that the Master 



THE SKEPTIC. 73 

can touch but one string of His instrument? 
Can He not, at will, run His swift hand across 
the chords, making the cause and the sequence 
one ? Can He not speak, and it shall be done — 
command and it shall stand fast ? In such a 
case, the law of nature is not violated but va- 
ried by Him who is Himself that Law. More- 
over, we are profoundly ignorant of processes. 
In the last analysis, we can give no reason why 
medicine should cure a fever any more than a 
word — why the blind eye should obey the sci- 
ence of the oculist any more than the touch of 
a finger. The only answer that can be given 
in any instance is — " It is God's will ;" and no 
man who believes in a God at all will deem this 
answer irrelevant. Nor -will any one who con- 
siders the limitations of human knowledge, who 
realizes the wonder in which he is embosomed, 
and the unseen forces of the universe, deny the 
possibility of a miracle simply upon the ground 
of his experience or his philosophy of nature. 
And yet this dogmatical ground is the radical 
support of skepticism in this respect. Let it be 
given up, and the miracles of the New Tes- 
tament would stand, where every enlightened 
Christian would have them stand — upon their 
specific credibility. But now, no amount of in- 
ternal or external evidence can shake the obsti- 
nate incredulity which will not believe because 

4 



74 THOMAS : 

it has never seen, or because such belief requires 
faith in something broader than it knows. 

In fact, the sources of this skepticism are fed 
by a sentiment quite common in human nature, 
which opposes the admission of any thing sur- 
passing its routine of thought and knowledge. 
In every-day life, there is a class of men who, 
upon the broaching of any strange fact or the- 
ory, shrug their shoulders and toss out an ex- 
pression of incredulity or contempt. That this 
does not always indicate shrewdness and intelli- 
gence, but sometimes narrowness and ignorance, 
I need not say. While the enlightened mind 
jumps to no hasty conclusions, applies sound 
and candid tests, and holds its decision in abey- 
ance to reason, it knows too well, the truth of 
the poet's assertion, that " there are more things 
in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in 
our philosophy/' to assume at onee a dogmatic 
unbelief. There are men in the world to whose 
vision, if we judge by their assumptions, the 
universe lies compact and open ; for they repu- 
diate every transcendent suggestion, and act as 
if they expected to learn nothing more. Sail- 
ing upon this little ball of earth through an infi 
nite ocean of mystery, shut in by a thin film 
from countless suns of being — one would think 
that the invisible forces of nature, the secrets of 
the under-world, and the treasures of the far- 



THE SKEPTIC. 75 

reaching firmament, were all published in the 
news papers, or packed and labelled along the 
streets through which they walk, and in the 
rooms where they eat and sleep. Until man- 
kind at large are startled out of this vulgar as- 
sumption and materialism, we offer too much 
verge for the skeptic who, like Thomas, will not 
believe unless he can see, and touch, and handle, 
and who is so strongly rooted in his preposses- 
sions that, it is probable, he would find some 
excuse for maintaining them even though one 
should rise from the dead. 

But, again ; the skeptic, as I think, errs in 
the exclusive authority which he ascribes to the 
intellect. He will believe in nothing that cannot 
be logically demonstrated. But while it may be 
true that as to all our conclusions we must have 
the correspondence, or ratification of reason, we 
should live but meagerly indeed, if we cherished 
and did nothing but what the intellect can dis- 
tinctly grasp. Mystery is involved with our 
most familiar acts, and our confidence, in a thou- 
sand instances, reaches far beyond the direct 
lines of reason. We have faculties for appre- 
hending knowledge other than those which deal 
with physical and mathematical realities. The 
intercourse of hearth and home, the relations of 
child and mother, and brother and friend, are 
not deductions of logic. Let any father under- 



76 THOMAS : 

take to prove by logical concatenation that he 
loves his son. Let us endeavor to probe the 
human heart with sharp, scientific analysis, and 
to define its sympathies. These things cannot 
be expressed in propositions. They elude our 
grasp. They refuse to be guaged by our mea- 
sure. And yet, the human heart knows that 
it loves ; we trust to the sanctities of home ; the 
child rests in its mother's arms as confidently as 
the philosopher rests upon the laws of the uni- 
verse. Moreover, we deal constantly with in- 
explicable realities. In every step we take, in 
every transaction, reason is mingled with faith ; 
and even as to this busy, workaday world, the 
sphere of the latter is as ample, and as much 
confided in as the sphere of sight. The con- 
clusions of faith and of the affections, then, are 
considered as legitimate as the conclusions of 
logic. The skeptic accepts them as such, every 
hour he lives, so far as earthly things are con- 
cerned. But the moment he comes in contact 
with spiritual statements, he demands that every 
thing shall be strained through the menstruum 
of his brain, or be seen in clear outline upon the 
horizon. He does not believe in a God, because 
intellectually he cannot conceive His Infinity. 
He does not believe in immortality, because he 
has never seen one rise from the dead. Faith 
and intuition are good evidences upon ordinary 



THE SKEPTIC. 77 

points, but when religion presents its supersen- 
sual realities, his arrogant reason exclaims — 
"Except I can see, and touch, and intensify- 
under my own lens, I will not believe." What 
I claim from the skeptic is, the exercise of his 
whole nature upon the matters of Religion ; not 
in order that he may believe things contrary to 
his understanding, but things too deep for its 
measurement, too lofty for its reach — things 
which his understanding, acting in harmony with 
all his powers, acknowledges when presented, 
but which of itself it cannot demonstrate. But 
now in the isolation of his clear, cold intellect, 
the skeptic abides in a glacial and spectral uni- 
verse. No glow from the affections lights up 
the frost and shadow of the grave. He feels no 
prophecy in the thrill of the human heart, in the 
incompleteness of nature. He believes merely 
in things tangible, and sees only in the day-time. 
He will not confess the authenticity of that paler 
light of faith which was meant to shine when 
the sunshine of reason falls short, and the firma- 
ment of mystery is over our heads. 

And yet there is a close alliance between 
skepticism and superstition. For, if the skeptic 
is not certain that supersensual realities do exist, 
neither does he know that they do not exist. 
And often you will see the man who contemns 
the bible, and rejects the notion of immortality, 



78 THOMAS : 

summoning a weird horror from the great abyss 
of the unknown, dealing in magic, trusting in 
charms, and expecting communications from de- 
parted spirits. For, man is so constituted that 
he must believe in something supersensual. He 
knows that the limited experience of mortality 
cannot be all ; that the universe is prolific ; that 
regions of being must lie all about him, far be- 
yond the scope of his earthly vision. And, re- 
jecting that steady light which streams upon us 
from Revelation, he builds up some abnormal 
and fantastic creed. In fact, the enlightened 
Christian is the true philosopher. If we would 
be free from the perplexities of superstition, and 
from the fanaticism of credulity, if we would 
tread upon the solid earth and carry a calm and 
steady intellect, we must accept those state- 
ments which come to us upon the authority of 
Jesus. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of every 
new suggestion. We know not where we are, 
nor whither we are drifting. We know not 
whether we are in the hands of God, or of de- 
mons. To-day, we believe that we shall die as 
brutes — to-morrow, that our souls will transmi- 
grate. We know not what spectre from the 
mysterious deep will start out upon us. And a 
worse result than this pertains to the skeptical 
mood. It unsettles the grounds of all mofal ac- 
tion. In some fit of melancholy, in the bitter- 



THE SKEPTIC. 79 

ness of disappointment, or upon some extraordi- 
nary revelation of human selfishness, it moves 
us to deny that there is any such thing as virtue, 
and makes the difference between it and vice to 
be merely one of convenience. Now, it pub- 
lishes the code of self-indulgence and laps us in a 
voluptuous Epicureanism ; and anon, it holds up 
the rigid and impossible ideal of the stoic, or as- 
cetic. And it will be seen, after all, that Christ- 
ianity furnishes the only foundation of a harmo- 
nious and rational life. While it pours upon 
this world the light of another, it also burns away 
those ghastly and distorting mists which evolve 
from the depths of unguided speculation, and is 
as unfavorable to superstition, as it is to atheism. 
It urges a code of duty, strict yet simple ; fitted 
to beings of earthly mould, yet of immortal des- 
tiny. 

Doubtless, were we to probe the grounds of 
skepticism, we might find there dislike to reli- 
gion — to its duties and sacrifices — as a potent 
cause of unbelief. But, leaving this as a bare 
suggestion, I will make one or two isolated crit- 
icisms, and close. 

I remark, then, that, often, skepticism appears 
as a system of dialectic convenience. The skep- 
tic does not profess any belief, and so easily shifts 
his ground. When hard pressed upon one point, 
he nimbly jumps to another, and when cramped 



80 THOMAS : 

between both, he maintains that he neither de- 
nies nor affirms. Now, I have already spoker* 
against precipitate conclusions. I have urged 
the claim of reason over credulity. I have com- 
mended a due weighing and sifting of evidence. 
But, surely the man who in this world sticks to 
nothing, may be suspected of hollow-hearted- 
ness. He appears as one who amuses himself 
with the universe, instead of working out its 
problems. He is a skilful fencer, and not a true 
warrior in the battle of life ; and causes us to 
feel that the downright fanatic is nearer to the 
heart of things, than the cool and slippery dis- 
putant. 

And, again, it is to be objected to skepticism, 
that it has never accomplished any thing. It 
has never founded empires, established princi- 
ples, or changed the world's heart. The great 
doers in history have always been men of faith. 

At least, we may say of skepticism, that it 
only tears down. The skeptic topples into ruins 
the fabric which has sheltered me, and where I 
have found peace, and turns me out into the re- 
gion of doubt and of bleak necessity. As Car- 
lyle says of Voltaire, he has " a torch for burn- 
ing, but no hammer for building." But this was 
never meant to be so. It is not in analogy with 
the universe, in which destruction is but the 
transition to higher development. Man is a 



THE SKEPTIC. 81 

being of affections and desires, but the skeptic 
plucks from him all upon which these affections 
rest, or that satisfies his desire, and leaves him 
empty-handed to contend with the problems of 
existence. And all this because our knowledge 
is incomplete — because the objects of our trust 
are not entirely in sight. I would say, though 
I cannot see the whole, leaye me the portions 
that I do see. Let me stand upon them, islands 
as they are in the mist- wrapped ocean of being. 
I gain nothing by leaping from them, blindly, into 
the deep. Nay, would not many say, even if 
Christianity is a delusion, leave us that delusion ? 
It is better than the emptiness of skepticism. 
Though I may be doomed to annihilation, I shall 
at least never know that I have been mocked. 
If the grave be all, let me think that I see beyond 
it. Though God in reality be far from me, let me 
trust that I can commune with Him. Though 
your clear intellect discerns no supersensual 
good, let me still harbor among the suggestions 
of affection and of faith. Let me still be one 
of that great company — that long procession of 
those who have marched to the land of shadows, 
who for thousands of years have prayed and 
hoped, and who in all have found Religion to be 
an uplifting influence and a healing balm. Let 
me be among those trusting fathers, those loving 
mothers, those confiding children, who have en- 

4* 



b^ THOMAS : 

dured the trials, and shared the joys of earth, 
mixing all with their belief in better realities, 
and who in dying-chambers have laid them calm- 
ly down, with their religion 

" Not dreaming that it was a dream." 

Nay, let me accord with the lofty natures that 
have soared and sung, and yet in their noblest 
discoveries, in their richest floods of inspiration, 
have found nothing to shake their tenderest 
trust. Let me live in the faith of apostles ; let 
me fall asleep in the confidence of martyrs. 
Let me be with these, O ! skeptic in their delu- 
sion, rather than with you in your refutation 
and denial. Let me be with these until you can 
give me something better. 

But, my friends, to most of us, I presume, 
Christianity is not a delusion. Though we have 
not seen we believe. Though we have not 
touched the bodily form of Jesus, nor thrust our 
hands into his wounded side, yet we have faith 
in his actual existence and living spirit. We 
acknowledge a God. We give our assent to the 
great claims and sanctions of duty. We believe 
that though this body shall drop to ashes, the 
soul shall go beaming upward like a star. But 
of what use is this belief without corresponding 
action ? What better is a formal Christianity 
than an avowed rejection of it? Surely far 



THE SKEPTIC. 83 

better is that intellectual skepticism which, like 
Thomas, will honestly follow its convictions, than 
that moral skepticism which, while we cry out 
with our lips — " My Lord and my God !" leaves 
us still indolent and faithless. 



PILATE : 

THE MAN OF THE WOKLD, 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 87 



IV. 

PILATE : THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 

And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas 
unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, 
to be crucified. Make; xv. 15. 

Although I have devoted each of these dis- 
courses to the consideration of a particular 
phase of character, I am compelled to indicate 
that peculiarity by the most comprehensive 
term. Under every general class, there are va- 
rieties, each of which might form a separate 
topic. This is especially the case with the sub- 
ject which I have selected for this evening. For 
the term, " Man of the World," may be applied 
to men whose conduct and whose station in life 
are very different. But, although it includes a 
multitude of species, there are one or two traits 
showing that it designates a common genus. 
These traits may be detected in that personage 
to whom I now call your attention. 

Pontius Pilate was appointed Procurator, or 
Governor of Judea, by the Emperor Tiberias, 



88 PILATE : 

and held that office for about ten years. But 
few details respecting him appear in history. In 
the course of his administration he is represented 
as performing several acts of cruelty and insult. 
Thus, he shocked the religious feelings of the 
Jews by bringing into the streets of Jerusalem 
the Roman standards, decorated with the effigy 
of the Emperor. By that people, such images 
were considered idolatrous, and, accordingly, 
Pilate's predecessors had always entered the 
city without them. It was only after a great 
excitement, in this instance, that the obnoxious 
emblems were withdrawn. He touched the 
same feeling again by taking some of the sacred 
money from the treasury of the temple for the 
purpose of building a magnificent aqueduct. 
The populace rose and prevented the work. Pi- 
late, having disguised some of his soldiers, sent 
them in among the multitude, and upon a signal 
they drew their concealed weapons, and slew 
great numbers of the unarmed and surprised 
rioters. Another tumult which broke out in 
Samaria, and which was attended with like 
consequences, was the occasion of his own 
downfall. For this bloody act, he was accused 
by the Samaritan Senate of murder, and by 
order of Vitellius, President of Syria, he was 
sent to Rome to answer to this charge. It is 
stated that he was banished by the Emperor 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 89 

Caligula into Gaul, and that there he put an end 
to his own life. 

In the New Testament, Pilate is mentioned 
as ordering the massacre of certain Galileans, 
which may have been one of the instances al- 
ready referred to. But he appears principally 
in connection with the crucifixion of our Sa- 
vior ; and it is there that he unfolds those traits 
of character upon which I have founded the 
present discourse. 

Although perplexed by the manner of Jesus, 
and knowing nothing of his real claims, it re- 
quired but little penetration for him to discover 
that the prisoner was unjustly accused by the 
Jews, and to detect the hollowness of their sud- 
den profession of loyalty. He was disposed, 
therefore, to rescue him from the fury of his en- 
emies. For this purpose he tried several expe- 
dients. At one time he refused to proceed with 
the case, as there was no evidence against the 
Savior. Then, he endeavored to compromise 
the matter, by scourging Jesus. Availing him- 
self of a custom, he proposed to set the accused at 
liberty instead of Barabbas, a convicted robber. 
He tried to throw off the responsibility by send- 
ing Christ to Herod. He made an appeal to 
the humanity of the people, by leading him forth 
crowned with thorns and bleeding. But it only 
inflamed their passions, and they responded 



90 PILATE : 

with the brutal shout — "Crucify him!" All 
was in vain. The multitude, instigated by their 
leaders, grew more excited, and, at length, lifted 
the ominous cry — " If thou let this man go, thou 
art not Caesar's friend !" This effected their 
object more than anything else ; it seemed to 
touch a chord in Pilate's breast. So, washing 
his hands, as though that ceremony could 
cleanse his soul from guilt, he delivered up the 
Redeemer to the mockery of the soldiers, and 
the will of the Jews. 

Though we have seen instances of cruelty on 
the part of Pilate, and he has been styled a 
venal judge, and a bloody ruler, such are not 
the most prominent traits exhibited by him here. 
Nor can we deny that he made several attempts 
to release Jesus. The Savior himself appears 
to have accounted him less guilty than his own 
countrymen. But, admitting all this, it is clear, 
throughout the whole transaction, that Pilate 
recognised nothing higher than conventional 
law ; nothing higher than policy and self-inter- 
est. Upon ordinary occasions, he was firm 
enough. He did not fear the clamors of the 
people, nor parley with their humor. He could 
have saved Jesus if he would. But with the 
same recklessness with which he shed the blood 
of the guilty who revolted against the state, he 
permitted the blood of the Innocent to be shed in 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 91 

order to preserve the peace of the state. He was 
willing that Christ should be spared, but was 
more willing to maintain his own ease, and was 
very glad to send the man against whom he 
could find nothing, to Herod. And when the 
clamors of the people threatened not merely his 
ease, but his power and his life — when he 
thought of that angry excitement surging 
against the palace at Rome, and waking the 
jealousy of the dreadful Tiberius, he decided 
the matter at once. Innocent as the Savior 
was, he could not afford to lose his own place. 
It was better that policy should stand, and the 
guiltless perish than otherwise — and so he gave 
him up. Singularly enough, it was by an accu- 
sation of the Jewish people that Pilate did fall 
at last. But had he fallen now, it would have 
been for an act of tenderness. Then it was for 
an act of cruelty. Now he would have carried 
into his exile the thought of mercy and of jus- 
tice, to bear him up. Then he carried hands 
red with the blood of his subjects, and, among 
other memories, the recollection of the guiltless 
and condemned Nazarine — sacrificed to pre- 
serve that very policy which, with himself, had 
fallen into ruin. 

Pilate, then, acted according to a conven- 
tional standard. He was a man of secondary 
principles — a man of self-interest and policy ; 



92 PILATE : 



and, therefore, he fairly represents the man of 
the world. 

It is proper to say here, however, that this 
term — man of the world — may be employed in 
a highly commendable sense, which in order to 
distinguish it from the class represented by Pi- 
late, I propose, in the first place, to define. We 
may call one a man of the world, then, who tho- 
roughly knows the world, and because he thus 
knows it, is able to use and to withstand it. He 
is neither a slave to it, nor in partnership with 
it, but holds it in its proper place. And yet, his 
dominion over it, gives him a wise adaptedness 
to it. He does not show his superiority by be- 
ing uncouth, or unsophisticated. Though the 
whole of it may appear to him but as a grain 
of sand in the infinitude of God, he is aware of 
its absolute value, for he has weighed it, and 
tested it. He is a man of shrewd observation 
and of large intercourse. He knows how to say 
the right word, to touch the pertinent point, and 
is not to be imposed upon by anything in this 
ingenious and productive Babel. He does not 
neglect his sphere of life, but carries into it 
honor, and dignity, and power. Withal, he is a 
gentleman ; exhibiting that gentility in which 
the heart and the manners are flexibly inter wo 
ven, which lends to the earnestness of true man- 
hood a reconciling amenity, and which, while it 






THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 93 

costs so little, gives so much. In one word, he 
is a contrast to the bigot, the simpleton, and the 
boor. 

And not only does he manifest a wise adapt- 
edness to the world, but a large sympathy with 
it. He is superior to a narrow sectionality. 
Affection for particular men and places he has, 
but this does not circumscribe his charity. It is 
very easy to dignify local prejudice with the 
name of patriotism, and, in our day, the mistake 
seems not uncommon. A man's love for his 
native land lies deeper than any logical expres- 
sion, among those pulses of the heart which vi- 
brate to the sanctities of home, and to the 
thoughts which leap up from his fathers' graves. 
His admiration of his country may blend the 
unselfish emotions of reverence and gratitude. 
But, when this puffs out in an extravagant boast- 
fulness, or contracts into an exclusive affection, 
it is simply ignorance or demagogism. And, 
certainly, our true man of the world entertains 
none of this " anti-magnanimous egotism." He 
looks over the earth, so scanning its different 
portions, as to perceive more clearly the defects 
as w T ell as the excellences of his own — the good 
as well as the evil of others. In the noble lan- 
guage of Lord Bacon, his " heart is no island 
cut off from other lands, but a continent that 
joins to them." 



94 PILATE : 

But, after all, the source of this superiority to 
the world lies in an internal and reserved power 
— -the power of Moral Principle and Religious 
Faith, which, at once enable him to avoid the 
contaminations of the world, and yet to mingle 
with it — to overcome its temptations and to send 
abroad a blessed and transfiguring influence, 
and which cause the most incidental expressions 
of his nature to reflect the goodness and wis 
dom with which they have been associated — 
like & transparent stream that rolls over floors of 
opal and of gold. His is the spirit of duty and 
of tolerance, so that he is neither ductile nor ob- 
stinate. He does not jump with the popular 
humor at the risk of dislocating his own con- 
science ; nor does he withhold any reasonable 
advances in order that he may indulge the luxu- 
ry of self-will. He is not an oak nor a reed, 
but assimilates to himself, the sunshine, the 
wind, and all the diversities of circumstance, 
that he may ripen, and fulfil his being, like the 
growing corn. And thus ripening and fulfilling, 
he feels the increase of years, to use the expression 
of Sir Thomas Overbury, not by " weakness 
of body, but by strength of soul." His is no 
fungus-life, clinging below the ordinary surface 
of existence and sucking the dank air of pas- 
sion. It is no sterile formula covered with thin 
herbage and eked out with flaunting weeds. It 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 95 

is a rooted power, striking far down among ripe 
experiences and fibres of strenuous discipline. 

Moreover, to such a man the world is trans- 
parent, and all things lie enfolded in their abso- 
lute relations. What others are apt to regard 
as more solid he treats as unsubstantial ; and 
what they deem visionary he finds most real. 
Banks and warehouses, cathedrals and pyra- 
.mids, are but cutaneous temporalities ; and "the 
perpetual hills " but bubbles shot from the seeth- 
ing deeps. These dense materialities enclose 
spiritual facts, as the clouds sheathe lightning ; 
the concave lies about him like a thin dome of 
crystal ; and he believes that, could we only 
couch the film of sense that covers our percep- 
tion, we should find ourselves embosomed in 
awful mountain-clefts of being, in which the 
flashing lights, the continual wheels, the sound- 
ing stream of the market and the street, would 
dissolve and roll away like clouds of vapor. And 
yet, perceiving all these forms to be thus charg- 
ed and mixed with spiritual realities, he is ab- 
sorbed in no fantastical fancies. His very faith 
in the truly spiritual guards him from the gro- 
tesque, and he accepts his lot in this lower 
sphere as a work to be guided but not interrupt- 
ed by intimations from a higher. Perceiving 
an exhaustless revelation in every globe of dew r , 
and every star, he rejoices that One clearer 



96 PILATE : 

Light has beamed upon the path of duty, and 
cleft the shadow of the grave, and deems it best, 
as it has been ordered — that we should labor 
with shaded eyes here in our mortal field, around 
which hangs a nebulous fringe of suggestion; 
around which broods a wise and merciful 
silence. 

To sum up ; we 4 may say for such an one, 
that the essential good of the world has passed - 
into his being in orderly subjection and legiti- 
mate uses, and so he is greater than it. He lays 
hold of its embryotic possibilities, and fills them 
with spiritual purpose. Its appetites are reined 
back within the orbits of reason and conscience. 
Its forms of knowledge stand reflected in the 
round mirror of his thought. Against its antag- 
onisms his moral principle struggles, and gains 
force by struggling; like the pine that pushes up 
between wedges of granite and stands out 
against the arctic sky. While, in the compass 
of his Faith, it all dwindles to an atom, and he 
is bound about with the Omnipresence of God. 
He is a man of the world, then, as master of the 
world. The circumstances of his existence here, 
are not the impediments of his life ; are not the 
staple of his life ; but its adjuncts. They drop 
around him like the sculptured drapery around 
a statue, from which rises his essential character 
erect and clear. 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 97 

Of a very different stamp from all this, how- 
ever, is the man of the world in the common 
acceptation of the term ; which implies not that 
he has a wise knowledge of the world, a pure 
sympathy with it, and a noble mastery over it ; 
but, simply, that he is level with it — lives from 
its motives, and in accordance with its stand- 
ards. He who belongs to this class diners from 
the sensualist, because, though he may give un- 
lawful scope to the appetites, sensualism is an 
ingredient of his character rather than the sta- 
ple ; while, often, he controls desire, and keeps 
passion in check, as vigorously as a stoic. The 
sensualist is chaotic and reckless, and wallows 
in indulgence. But this man holds the reins in 
his hand, and never suffers gratification to over- 
come himself, or to defeat an ulterior purpose. 
His life is organized, and has a plan and a code. 
He has less heat than the other, but greater 
steadiness, and his character is altogether more 
compact and definite. Whatever may be his 
sphere, he keeps even with the current, and ad- 
justs himself to its standards. I repeat, he is 
level with the world. He sinks to no grossness 
which is below its proprieties; he rises to no 
enthusiasm which overleaps its policy. 

As this class comprehends a multitude, the 
varieties are numerous. In selecting two or 
three illustrations of the general type, we may 
5 



PILATE : 



notice him who is level with the mere elegancies 
of the world. According to the stamina of 
his nature, this one will be a splendid trifler or a 
twittering fop. In the first instance, it is easy 
to be perceived that the luxurious idler is intrin- 
sically capable of better things. He has been 
well endowed, and possesses the fibres of a no- 
ble manhood. But the great deep within him 
has not been broken up; its chords have not 
been toned to the higher solemnities of being ; 
and he has only glided upon the ecliptic of fash- 
ionable routine. A true man always preserves 
his simplicity of soul, and no contact frets away 
the springs of delight and enthusiasm. The 
great statesman, furrowed as he is with many 
cares, and used to the angularities of diplomacy; 
or the philosopher who toils in abstract mazes ; 
finds music, poetry, the outward universe, as 
fresh and glorious to-day as in the star-eyed 
morning of youth, and the magic touch of sym- 
pathy makes him laugh or cry like a boy. But 
our man of the world, who has done nothing 
but fritter away time, because his mind has 
been occupied with no great thought or duty, 
cannot feel this joy of resiliency — this rebound 
from labor to refreshment, from artificial con- 
straint to the natural sympathies. He has lived 
upon the blooms and flavors of life until relish 
is lost in surfeit. He has exhausted the super- 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 99 

ficialities of nature and of art, and as he has 
not exercised his being into a profounder insight, 
all has become monotonous and tasteless. He 
cannot tease satiety into zest. He abhors emo- 
tion, and subsides into disgust. With the plane 
of his vision still level to the garnish of life, he 
finds his only excitement in criticising it. And 
when this is performed soberly, it is well for the 
critic and well for the world. But it must be done 
by him who can take in its relations with a tel- 
escopic sweep, as well as see its defects through 
an opera-glass. Thus, in the collapse of a worn- 
out body and a jaded soul, he sinks — this pol- 
ished man of fashion and of the town, this fas- 
tidious and heartless worldling — he sinks, like a 
plummet, into the depths of the infinite, upon 
whose mere surface and with whose most tran- 
sient phenomena he has trifled away his being. 

Of the representative of this variety in its 
weaker aspect, I need only say that he is a slick 
and harmless being ; a kind of whiskered Es- 
sence, or organized Perfume ; level to the 
minutest propriety of the drawing-room and the 
opera, his thoughts oppressed with ten thousand 
points of ceremony, or pondering grave pro- 
blems as to the color of a glove or the shape of 
a boot. 

These remarks are not in disparagement of 
true elegance and refinement ; but I describe 



100 PILATE : 

those who live only in hollow, glittering forms. 
I speak of those who draw around them the up- 
holstery of an artificial world, a world of frip- 
pery and gas-light, and thus shut out the true 
world of thought and life ; shut out the true 
world of nature, where flowers bloom, and sun- 
beams fall, and over which Orion sparkles, and 
the Pleiades lead their flashing train. I speak 
of those who see only a border- surface of the 
world, as they float through life downward to- 
wards the dark and rapid river, and vanish at 
last, like bubbles, at the gates of the grave. 

Again ; there is the man who is level with 
the honors and advantages of the world. To a 
degree, he may be what commonly passes for a 
moral man. He is moral, so far as morality is 
not troublesome. He values diligence, prudence, 
punctuality, for these are good business-quali- 
ties. He sets a high estimate upon respecta- 
bility, and would not willingly violate the pro- 
prieties of his class. He cherishes a sense of 
honor. He is not without kind feelings, and 
generous impulses. He pays a decent regard to 
the externals of religion. In short, he is as good 
as circumstances will admit. And by " cir- 
cumstances/' he means his own interest ; for, 
in the world of which he is chiefly cognizant, 
circumstances are not so much the fluctuations 
of matter and spirit, as of stocks and staples ; 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 101 

and just where interest and morality part com- 
pany his morality gives out. He entertains no 
conception of self-sacrifice, no unworldly en- 
thusiasm. He never rises into the transcendant 
region of duty. His conscience is not a dy- 
namic force. It experiences no upheavals, no 
revolutions, no throbs of fathomless suggestion. 
It never intrudes upon him. It is as compact 
and monotonous as a clock ; though he never 
thinks of winding it up, or of examining whether 
it has not run down. He weighs everything in 
the scales of profit and loss, and measures pro- 
positions w 7 ith an eye as cold and hard as a bul- 
let. As to martyrdom for truth and justice, he 
considers it a fine fact in history ; but he would 
as soon expect to see a ghost in Wall-street, as 
a man actually putting by tangible advantages 
for these high principles. Only one thing he 
clearly discerns — that " it will not pay" 

Take, for illustration, this variety of the man 
of the world as a politician, or statesman. We 
shall discover throughout his entire course, the 
service of self at all cost, and the sacrifice of 
abstractions to tangible realities. We shall be- 
hold a man flexible, quick, sagacious, eloquent ; 
well versed in the knowledge of human nature 
as the very grammar of his profession, and fa- 
miliar with all that touches the popular pulse ; 
knowing when silence or ambiguity will serve 



102 PILATE : 

his purpose, and when honesty and boldness. 
Or, if he mounts above merely selfish consider- 
ations, he rises no higher than the interests of 
the party, or their immediate and material good. 
He deprecates all agitation that distuibs these, 
and does not forecast the final income of truth 
— the operation of that great law by which, in 
the long run, it turns out to be the best policy, 
both for individuals and for states. In trying 
times, he will hardly stand up and say — " Let 
party cement dissolve — let even material inter- 
ests be scattered for the time — the Right and 
that alone will I maintain !" Or, if he takes 
the Right for a buttress, as a final support for his 
position, he must make a hinge of compromises. 
Pilate did not like to crucify Jesus, but he 
scourged him. 

Sufficiently distinguished from either of these 
varieties is the man whom we may call " the 
Worldly Philosopher." He is distinguished 
from these because he acts upon his principles 
deliberately. For all who may be ranked under 
this denomination are not distinctly conscious 
of their position. A man's failure to observe 
the highest standard of living is not always the 
effect of wilful disregard; but depends much 
upon the moral plane in which he moves. In 
other words, he does not plumply violate con- 
science, but acts with an uneducated conscience. 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 103 

His moral retina is not sensitive, nor is its dis- 
crimination quick and clear. What he does see 
he sees well enough, but the light within him is 
feeble. The difficulty is not with his logical de- 
ductions, but with his premises, which will 
change only with a change in his position. Thus 
two men with the same degree of intellectual 
intelligence, and the same data before them, 
come to very different conclusions, because they 
do not stand on the same moral level. With 
one, the standard of rectitude is at zero, with 
the other it is far above or below zero. I am 
not attempting an ethical analysis ; but thus 
may be explained, though not excused, the con- 
duct of many, without supposing that they logi- 
cally reason out the wrong, and deliberately 
reject it. Now the difference between the 
worldly philosopher and the majority of those 
who live level with the world, appears in the 
fact that with him this is a deliberate standard. 
His philosophy, as well as their conduct, may 
spring from lack of moral comprehensiveness ; 
but while they do not distinctly see their prac- 
tical land-marks, he does. He has looked about 
him, pondered matters shrewdly, and arrived at 
the conclusion — that the best thing for a man to 
do in the world is to take care of himself — is to 
grasp the good that comes in his way, without 
any fine-spun sentiment. His ideas of things 



104 PILATE : 

are mean and sarcastic. He has no faith in 
human disinterestedness. To his view, society 
is a nest of eels, each trying to get his head above 
the other, and he who succeeds best is the 
best. Patriotism, virtue, religion, he considers 
to be all shams. Every man has his price ; the 
statesman in the senate-chamber, the philoso- 
pher in his closet, and the preacher in his pul- 
pit. There is no such thing as ingrained loyal- 
ty to conscience. Tickle a man's ruling passion 
sufficiently, tempt him with the bait of office, 
jingle a heavy purse before him, and he will 
cast off his virtue as a snake sheds its skin. 
Love is but passion, devotion is superstition or 
cant, and no trust can be reposed in a bosom- 
friend or in the sanctities of home. And our 
philosopher considers himself a part of the world 
which he thus caricatures. If it is running 
down the inclined-plane of depravity, he means 
to ride, and enjoy it, and laugh at it. He has 
no idea of thrusting his arm into the spokes, or 
of sacrificing himself to block the wheels. He 
does not believe in saints, and he does not mean 
to be a hypocrite — unless you bribe him to it. 
This is the philosophy of the libertine, who coolly 
denies the sanctions which he affronts, and en- 
deavors to erect inclination into law. It is the 
philosophy of the sharper, with whom trade is a 
series of practical jokes, and who allows no cri- 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 105 

terion but success. It is the philosophy of the 
hireling, ready to serve any faction, and to con- 
vert his pen into a dagger or a muck-rake. It is 
the philosophy of men who have been soured 
by disappointment, or made desperate by the 
chafing of circumstances against their pride — 
of men in whom the affections are overflowed 
by a sardonic temper or a mercurial wit — of 
men who, convinced in themselves of intense 
selfishness or spontaneous cunning, have made 
their own breasts the concave-glass in which 
they see the whole world. It is the philosophy 
of disease, or deformity, transmuting idiosyn- 
crasy into history. It is not necessary to urge 
any argument against it. A Mephistopheles 
might welcome such a theory, but it is refuted 
by the simple instincts of our nature, which re- 
volt from any form of universal skepticism. 
The world is bad enough, but we see the depra- 
vity by light w T hich streams from veins of good- 
ness running through it ; and around its lazar- 
houses and shambles, its giant selfishness and 
pointed deceits, there are martyr graves and 
patriot battle-fields, Love burning forever like a 
vestal fire, and Faith looking calmly upward. 

Such, then, variously modified in individual 
cases, are some of the general characteristics of 
that class who may be called men of the world, 
as being level with the world. In Pilate, this 



106 PILATE : 

secondary conception and time-serving policy 
appear in his ignorance of the true dignity of 
Jesus, and in his readiness to sacrifice innocence 
to interest. When, half in vague wonder, 
perhaps half in contempt, he asked — " Art thoia 
a king, then ?" how poorly did he understand 
that sublime answer — " Thou sayest that I am 
a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause 
came I into the world, that 1 should bear wit- 
ness unto the truth/' What did the Roman 
Governor ; the man who had been accustomed 
to deal with tangible things, to acquire his power 
by blood and by intrigue, and to hold it with an 
armed hand ; what did he know of such a king- 
dom as this ? To his eyes, Jesus stood as a 
mystic, as a harmless enthusiast, bewildered 
with abstractions ; and he cries out — " What is 
Truth T " What has that to do with this mat- 
ter, or with me?" Little did he know the 
breadth, the glory, the permanence of that king- 
dom of the truth which even from the cross to 
which he was about to doom the Victim, should 
stretch from land to land, and from age to age, 
erecting its sovereignty in every true heart, and 
achieving conquests wherever that sublime an- 
swer should be read, long, long after his throne 
and the throne of the Caesar whom he served, 
should have crumbled into dust. But harmless 
or dangerous, innocent or guilty, he saw that 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 107 

this Jesus was the occasion of a tumult which 
disturbed the peace of the state and threatened 
his own interest — and he investigated no farther. 
He measured the facts by his own standard. 
Christ was guiltless, and he would save him. 
He was guiltless, but Pilate was willing to com- 
promise. He was guiltless ; but then, that 
clamor w T as disagreeable. He was guiltless; 
but if his life was to stand against Pilate's pri- 
vate interest, he must die. He was guiltless ; 
but what was one man's existence compared 
with the peace of the Roman state ? Evidently, 
the Right here was impracticable ; at least im- 
politic. So he would wash his hands of the 
matter ; not by letting the guiltless go, as he 
could have done if he dared, but by a little pro- 
testation and ceremony ; and then, " willing to 
content the people," he "released Barabbas 
unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had 
scourged him, to be crucified." 

Whatever may be the individual peculiarities 
of this class, then, through all its varieties there 
runs this common trait — that, lifted above the 
degradation of appetite, they are just level with 
the horizon of sense. The man of the world 
does not rise above the circle of routine into 
the sphere of absolute relations, where the trans- 
actions of life appear colored by moral distinc- 
tions and mixed with endless issues. He does 



108 PILATE : 

not feel a superior influence throbbing through 
the iron arteries of the earth. He does not see 
the permanent meanings that brood behind these 
forms and shadows. The arc of his thought is 
no wider than the angle of his perception. His 
ideal is the world in itself and the world as 
it is. In short, I say the whole when I re- 
mark that the man of the world has no genuine 
faith in the great realities of religion. f He may- 
cherish a traditional belief, and give an outward 
expression. He may sit in cushioned pews and 
listen to serious discourses. But the sinews of 
his practical life are not mated with spiritual 
sanctions. These are distant and dim, belonging 
to the regions of the angelic and the immortal, 
but having no actual relations to time and mat- 
ter. Nothing is real except that which can be 
coined into money, or used as a symbol of dis- 
tinction or an instrument of power — while he 
does not detect God's presence hemming him 
about, and searching his heart, in the work-shop, 
the counting-room, the social circle, and the 
legislative hall. 

Let us remember, then, that while there is a 
comprehensive sense in which we may be men 
of the world, as thoroughly knowing it, and 
wisely using it ; there is a sense in which too 
many live as only level with its policy and in- 
spired by its spirit. And how shall it be with 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 109 

us ? Shall we be masters of the w T orld or only 
its adherents ? Shall we see beyond it, or only 
within it ? Shall we descend into it from nobler 
heights, from holier points of action, and pass 
through it as employing its discipline, ministering 
to its needs, and triumphing over its evil ; or 
shall we be absorbed in it, overwhelmed and 
crushed by it, and conformed only to its ideals ? 
Shall we, with Jesus, while living in the world 
in our profoundest and truest life, be not of it ; 
or, with Pilate, shall we know only its policy 
and glory, and find nothing but its insufficiency 
and defeat. 



NICODEMUS : 

THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 113 



V. 



NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER 
RELIGION. 

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler 
of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night. — John iii. 1, 2. 

Although we have but few glimpses of Nico- 
demus in the Gospels, he is a personage of pecu- 
liar interest. A Pharisee, and a member of the 
great Jewish Senate, or Sanhedrin, he shows 
us that the influence of Christ was not limited 
to the poor and the obscure ; but that, while his 
Words and Works awoke enmity and fear 
among the higher classes, they struck, in the 
breasts of some of these, a holier chord. 

It may not be certain that Nicodemus ever 
openly confessed Christ ; yet, in this chapter, he 
appears in the attitude of a disciple, and we 
find him defending Jesus before the Sanhedrin, 
and assisting at his burial. Still, unless the last- 
mentioned act be considered as such, we do not 
discover, \n his conduct, that public and deci- 
sive acknowledgment which the Savior requir- 



114 nicodemus: 

ed ; we do not behold the frank avowal of Peter, 
or the intrepidity of Paul. There is an air of 
caution and of timidity about him. He care- 
fully feels the ground of innovation, before he 
lets go the establishment ; and, indeed, he ap- 
pears to have taken no step by which he for- 
feited his caste or his office. It is difficult, too, 
to discover the precise purpose of this visit to 
Jesus. Perhaps he sought the interview, from 
mixed motives. A religious earnestness, kindled 
by the teachings and the character of Christ, 
may have blended with speculative curiosity, 
and even with the throbbings of political ambi- 
tion. His coming by night, too, may have indi- 
cated timidity, or he may have chosen that sea- 
son as the best time for quiet and uninterrupted 
discourse. But, whatever may have been his 
motives, the position in which we find him, shows, 
I repeat, that the power of Christ's ministry was 
felt, not only by the excitable multitude, but by 
the more thoughtful and devout of the Jewish 
people. 

Nicodemus, however, presents a peculiar in- 
terest, not only because he exhibits the influence 
of Jesus upon the higher orders of his nation, 
but because he appears as a Seeker after Re- 
ligion, and as one personally interested in its 
vital truths. His interview with tbe Savior, 
gives occasion for one of the most important 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 115 

passages in the New Testament. The conver- 
sation of Christ, in this instance, is not uttered 
in general principles and accommodated to the 
multitude, but it is directed to an intelligent and 
inquiring spirit, in the calm privacy of the night- 
time, laying bare its very depths, and craving 
the application of religion to its own peculiar 
wants. To be sure, Nicodemus did not profess 
this want, but commenced the conversation 
with the language of respect, and with sugges- 
tion of more general inquiry. But he who 
" knew what was in man," had already pene- 
trated the folds of the Ruler's breast, and saw 
the real need that had sent him ; so, putting by 
all compliments, and all secondary issues, he 
struck at once the conscious chord that throbbed 
there, and exclaimed : " Verily, verily, I say 
unto thee, except a man be born again, he can- 
not see the Kingdom of God !" These words 
must have filled Nicodemus with surprise, both 
from their sudden heart-searchingness, and as 
addressing to him a term which was usually ap- 
plied to men of very different condition. For 
the phrase, "new birth," was a customary one 
to express the change through which the Gentile 
passed in becoming a Jew. But it was indeed 
a strange doctrine that he, a son of Abraham, a 
Pharisee, a Ruler, must be born again, before he 
could be fit for the Messiah's kingdom. There- 



116 nicodemus : 

fore, really or affectedly, he misunderstood the 
Savior's words, and gave to a phrase, plain 
enough when applied to a heathen, the most 
gross and literal interpretation. But Christ re- 
iterated the solemn truth, assuring him that an 
inward change, and an outward profession, a 
regeneration of the affections and the will, and 
a renunciation of pride and fear, by the symbol 
of baptism — a new birth of water and of the 
Spirit — was essential to true discipleship. And 
thus, stripping away all the reliances of formal 
righteousness, and all the supports of birth and 
position, in reply to the earnest question of Nico- 
demus : " How can these things be ?" the great 
Teacher proceeded to utter some of the sub- 
limest doctrines of the Gospel. As I have al- 
ready said, whether Nicodemus became an 
avowed follower of Jesus, or not, is uncertain ; 
but we know that the truths which he then 
heard, are of everlasting importance, have a 
personal application to every man, and appeal 
to wants in our own souls, which are as real and 
as deep as those of the Ruler of old. 

But while thus Nicodemus exhibits a need 
of our common humanity, he especially repre- 
sents a class who may be called " Seekers after 
Religton," either as being unsettled and inquiring 
in their spirits, or as resting upon something 
which is not Religion, but only, perhaps, a ten- 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 117 

dency toward it- — they are seekers after it, as 
not having actually found it. In other words, 
for this class, Religion has its meaning and its 
pressure ; they think about it, and they feel its 
claims, yet they do not thoroughly and experi- 
mentally know it ; or, like Nicodemus, they rest 
upon some substitute. Some of these positions, 
I propose now to illustrate. 

I observe, then, in the first place, that some 
seek Religion in Rituah and Sacraments. The 
tendency of the human mind, as to matters of 
faith and devotion, has always been to compli- 
cate, rather than to simplify, and to associate 
these with set forms and symbols. In all ages, 
men have shrunk from naked communion with 
God, from the solitude of an intense spirituality, 
and have conducted transactions with the In- 
visible, through the mediation of ceremony. 
But that which, at first, was an expression of 
the individual soul, has grow r n into a fixed and 
consecrated Rite. Gestures and modes of wor- 
ship, suggested by the occasion, have been re- 
peated in usage, and grown venerable with age, 
until they have become identified with Religion 
itself. They have been exalted into mystic 
vehicles of Grace, have been considered as pos- 
sessing virtue in themselves, and as constituting 
an awful paraphernalia, through which, alone, 



118 nicodemus : 

God will deign to communicate with man, and 
through which man may even propitiate and 
move God. Christianity has not escaped this 
tendency ; and, even now, there are many with 
whom the Sacraments are something more than 
expressive signs and holy suggestions, and with 
whom the position of an altar, the shape of a 
vestment, and the form of a church, are among 
the essentials of Religion. With such, Baptism 
speaks, not merely to the eye of an inward 
washing, but it is of itself a regenerative pro- 
cess. In their view, the Communion Bread is 
not simply a representation of the broken body 
of the Redeemer; but is itself so sacred, so 
identical with that body, that they must receive 
it by a special posture, and upon a particular 
part of the hand. As a matter of course, to 
such, Religion must appear eminently conserva- 
tive and retrospective ; the genius of the estab- 
lished and the past, rather than of the reforma- 
tory and the future. Cherishing the minutest 
fibres of these ancient rites, they chiefly vener- 
ate the men who authenticate them, and the soil 
out of which they grow. With them, the fluent 
spirit of Religion became organized and fixed 
into a form, with fast-days and feast-days, with 
mitre and cassock, and a lineal priesthood, ages 
ago. 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 119 

It cannot be said that this method is entirely- 
unfounded. It has its justification in human 
nature, if not elsewhere. There are those who 
can find peace only in the arms of an hereditary- 
Faith : who can feel the inspiration of worship 
only among forms that have kindled worship in 
others for a thousand years : with whose ear- 
liest thoughts and dearest memories is entwined 
a Ritual and Established Church, so that per- 
sonal affection and household sanctity, as well 
as religious feeling, demand that every great act 
of life — of joy or sorrow— should be consecrated 
by the familiar sacrament. For that church, 
too, their fathers have died in darker times, and 
beneath its chancels, sainted mothers moulder 
into dust. All, too, that can exalt the ideal, or 
wake the pulses of eloquent emotion, is con- 
nected with such a church. To them it opens 
a traditional perspective, the grandest in all his- 
tory. Behind its altars, sweep the vestments of 
centuries of priests, and rises the incense of cen- 
turies of prayer. In its stony niches, stand 
rows of saints, who have made human life sub- 
lime, and who, through all the passing ages, look 
down upon the turmoil of that life with the 
calm beatitude of heaven ; while its flushed 
windows still keep the blood-stain of its own 
martyrs, plashed against it ere yet it had be- 
come an anchored fact, and while it tossed upon 



120 xicodemus : 

the stormy waves of persecution. I can under- 
stand, then, how an imaginative and reverential 
mind can find the truest religious life only in 
connection with Rkual and Sacrament. 

I can understand, moreover, the re-action in 
this direction, which is taking place at the pre- 
sent day. It is the retreat of the Religious sen- 
timents from the despotism of an imperious rea- 
son. It is the counter-protest of loyal affections 
against what is deemed an anarchical tendency. 
It is the clinging of men's sympathies to the 
concrete, alarmed by the irreverent and analytic 
methods of science. It is the retirement of 
faith and devotion to those cloistered sanctities 
that shut out the noise of the populace, and the 
diversions of the street. B It is the reluctance 
of taste and imagination at our new and var- 
nished Protestantism, with its bare walls 
cold services, and its angular churches, of which 
one wing, perchance, rests upon a market, and 
the other upon a dram-shop. Especially would 
I not deny the profound spiritual life, the self- 
sacrifice, and the beautiful charities which have 
consisted at all times, and which consist in the 
present time, with this Ritual and Sacramental 
form of Religion. 

But when men claim that this alone is the 
genuine form — that these are essentials of the 
only true Church — then I deny that claim. If 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 121 

it fills some wants of our nature, it repudiates 
others equally authentic. If one class of minds 
find peace only under its consecrated shadows, 
others find no satisfaction but in the discipline 
of a spontaneous devotion, and the exercise of 
an individual reason. If it suffices for men like 
Borromeo or Newman, it does not suffice for 
men like George Fox, or Channing ; and the re- 
ligion of these is as evident, in their simple 
spirituality, as of those in their mystic symbol- 
ism. When it sneers at the Puritan, then I 
must vindicate that rugged independence of 
soul, that faithfulness to the individual con- 
science, that sense of the Divine Sovereignty, 
which could kneel at no man's altar, and to God 
alone ; which sacrificed all things for the right, 
but yielded not a hair to the wrong ; which 
could find no medicine for the spirit in Sacra- 
ments, but only in the solitude of the inner life ; 
and which has, under God, wrought out this no- 
ble consummation of modern times, whereby 
others may plant their vine of ritual under the 
broad heaven of toleration, and have liberty to 
sneer. When the Ritualist deprecates the ultra- 
ism and irreverence of the Anti-formalist, I must 
urge the tendency of his own principles to mum- 
mery and absolutism. And, finally, when he 
falls back upon Tradition, I must fall back upon 
the Bible. The spirit of the New Testament 



122 nicodemus : 

is not that of Rituals or Sacraments ; and the 
universal sentiments of the Old are not. The 
prophet Isaiah, who exclaims : " Bring no more 
vain oblations ; incense is an abomination unto 
me ; your new moons, and your appointed feasts, 

my soul hateth Wash you, make you 

clean cease to do evil, learn to do 

well!" joins with the Apostle, who says that 
Christ " blotted out the hand-writing of ordi- 
nances .... nailing it to his cross/' and that 
no man should judge us in meat or drink, or 
times, or seasons. And, surely, there is no ar- 
gument for forms or places in those Divine 
Words, which declare that "God is a Spirit, and 
they who worship Him, must worship Him in 
spirit and in truth." 

We cannot deny, then, that pure religion may 
consist with Rituals and Sacraments ; we can- 
not deny that it may exist without these. But 
I insist upon this point : that the Sacrament, the 
Ritual, is not, itself, Religion. It may be a 
beautiful sign — it may be a quick suggestion — 
it may be a medium of spiritual influence ; but, 
alone, it cannot take the place of inward, per- 
sonal piety, of right affections and an obedient 
will. No punctilious form can stand substitute 
for a vigilant conscience ; no posture of devo- 
tion can supply the place of living deeds ; no 
ascetic mortification can atone for guilt; no 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 123 

auricular confession can speak, instead of the 
breathings of repentance, in the ear of God, 
and out from the depths of the solitary soul. 
He who relies upon these forms, and finds sanc- 
tity only in them, may be sincere, may be seri- 
ous about religion, but as yet he is only a Seeker; 
and, speaking to his heart with all-penetrating 
meaning, comes to him the decree ; " Ye must 
be born again." 

Again ; there is a class who seek Religion in 
Philosophy. They believe in God, by a course 
of reasoning. They believe in immortality, be- 
cause it is a conclusion rivetted in their minds 
by the iron links of induction. They pray, or 
not, according as it seems logical to do so. 
They would be good, because goodness is use- 
ful. But every proposition upon which they 
act, must first be strained through the alembic 
of the intellect, and must stand out in the clear 
definition of science. They verify and build up 
their religion with callipers and dissecting-knife. 
It is a system of digestion and pneumatology. 
They find an organ for veneration, and anothei 
for conscientiousness, and therefore conclude 
that religion has a legitimate place in the har- 
mony of human character. But all must be 
calm and balanced. They dare not trust the 
feelings, and give but little scope to enthusiasm. 



124 nicodemus : 

Sometimes, indeed, they rise to eloquence in ex- 
patiating upon the truths of natural theology, 
and of " the elder scripture ;" though they be- 
lieve in Christ also, because he seems well au- 
thenticated as an historical Fact. In short, such 
men are religious like Cicero, or Seneca, with 
some modification from modern science, and 
from the Sermon on the Mount. 

Now there is a close alliance between true 
Philosophy and true Religion. That the New 
Testament is eminently free from fanaticism, 
and makes no appeal to mere credulity, any one 
will see who examines. That it is rational and 
sober, constitutes one of its great internal evi- 
dences. A Christian Philosopher is no anomaly, 
but a beautiful expression of the essential har- 
mony of all truth. Knowledge and Piety burn 
and brighten with an undivided flame. Reve- 
lation and Science are continually interpreting 
one another, while every day the material uni- 
verse is unfolding a more spiritual significance, 
and indicating its subservience to a spiritual 
end. But, after all, in order to be religious, it is 
not necessary that a man should be a philoso- 
pher, and it is certain that often he is a philoso- 
pher without being religious. Religion and 
Philosophy may coalesce, but they are two dif- 
ferent spheres. Philosophy is out-looking and 
speculative; Religion is inner and vital. In 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 125 

the scheme of Philosophy, Religion is reasoned 
out as a consequence, and adopted as .an ap- 
pendage to character. In the true scheme, it is 
the central germ of our being, the controlling 
force of life. The religion of Philosophy con- 
sists of right views of things, and a prudential 
schooling of the passions. True Religion con- 
sists in a right state of the affections, and a re- 
nunciation of self. In the one case, Religion 
may "play round the head, but come not near 
the heart ;" in the other, it breaks up the great 
deep of conscience, and pours an intense light 
upon the springs of motive. Philosophy con- 
tains the idea of intellectual rectitude ; Religion, 
of moral obedience. Philosophy speaks of vir- 
tue ; Religion, of holiness. Philosophy rests 
upon development ; Religion requires regenera- 
tion. In short, we make an every-day distinc- 
tion between the two, which is far more signifi- 
cant than any verbal contrast. It is the one, 
rather than the other, that we apply, in the pro- 
founder experiences of our moral nature, in the 
consciousness of sin, and in the overwhelming 
calamities of life. The one pours a purifying, 
healing, up-lifting power into the homes of hu- 
man suffering, and into the hearts of the igno- 
rant and the poor, that the other has not to be- 
stow. Philosophy is well, under all circum- 
stances ; but it is not the most inner element of 



126 nicodemus : 

our humanity. Religion, in its humility, peni- 
tence, and faith — at the foot of the cross, and 
by the open sepulchre — rejoices in a direct and 
practical vision, to which Philosophy, with its 
encyclopaedia and telescope, cannot attain. 

Under this head, too, may be ranked a class 
of men who, though they may not be exactly 
philosophers, fall into the same conception of 
Religion, as a matter of the intellect — as the 
possession of correct views — rather than a pro- 
found moral life. They estimate men according 
to what they believe, and attribute the same 
sanctity to the Creed that others attribute to the 
Ritual. And as Religion, in their conception 
of it, consists in a series of correct opinions, 
the great work should be an endeavor to make 
men think right. So the pulpit should be an 
arsenal of controversial forces, incessantly 
playing upon the ramparts of dogmatic error, 
with the artillery of dogmatic truth, and forever 
hammering the same doctrinal monotony upon 
the anvils of logic and of textual interpretation. 
They are satisfied if some favorite tenet is 
proved to a demonstration, and go forth rejoic- 
ing in the superiority of their " views/' without 
asking if Saving Love has melted and trans- 
figured their own hearts, or whether personal 
sin may not canker in their souls, if hereditary 
guilt is not there. Now, it is true that great 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 127 

principles lie at the foundation of all practical 
life, and the : more elevated and clear our views, 
the more effectual are the motives to holiness 
and love. But it matters little to what pole of 
doctrine the intellect swings, if the heart hangs 
unpenetrated and untouched. It matters little 
to what opinions in Theology the pulpit has 
made converts, if all its mighty truths have not 
heaved the moral nature of the hearer — if it has 
not shot into the individual soul, like an arrow, 
the keen conviction : " I must be born again !" 

Once more : there are those who seek Re- 
ligion in a routine of outward and commenda- 
ble deeds — in mere morality. With such, the 
great sum of life is to be sober, chaste, humane ; 
laying particular stress upon the business-vir- 
tues, honesty, industry, and prudence. In their 
idea, that man is a religious man who is an up- 
right dealer, an orderly citizen, a good neighbor, 
and a charitable giver. To be religious, means 
to do good, to keep your promises, and mind 
your own business. They tell us that benevo- 
lence is the richest offering, and that the truest 
worship is in the workshop and the field — that 
a man prays when he drives a nail or ploughs 
a furrow, and that he expresses the best thanks- 
giving when he enjoys what he has got, and is 
content if he gets no more. 



128 NICODEMUS : 

Now, the world is not so bad that there is not 
a good deal of this kind of religi&i in it. It 
would be unjust to deny that many golden 
threads of integrity wind through the fabric of 
labor ; that there is a strong nerve of rectitude 
holding together the transactions of daily life, 
and a wealth of spontaneous kindness enriching 
its darker and more terrible scenes. 

But, after all, these easy sympathies, and these 
prudential virtues, lack the radicalness of true 
Religion. Religion cannot exist without mo- 
rality ; but there is a formal morality which ex- 
ists without religion. I say, a formal morality ; 
for essential morality and essential Religion are 
as inseparable as the sap and the fruit. Nor is 
morality a mere segment of religion. It is one- 
half of it. Nay, when we get at absolute defi- 
nitions, the, two terms may be used interchange- 
ably ; for then we consider religion presenting 
its earthly and social phase, and we consider 
morality with its axis turned heavenward. But, 
in the case of these outside virtues, which are 
so common, we behold only one-half of religion, 
and that is its earthly and social form ; and even 
this lacks the root and sanction of true morality. 
For the difference between the morality of a re- 
ligious man and that of another, consists in this : 
with the one, morality bears the sanctions of an 
absolute law, and God is at its centre. It is 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 129 

wrought out by discipline, and maintained at all 
cost. With the other, 4t is an affair of temper- 
ament, and education, and social position. He 
has received it as a custom, and adopted it as a 
policy ; or he acts upon it as an impulse. With 
the one, it is a matter of profit and loss, or a fit- 
ful whim of sentiment. With the other, it is 
the voice of a divine oracle within, that must 
be obeyed ; it is the consecrated method of duty, 
and the inspiration of prayer. Now, to say 
that it makes no difference about the motive of 
an act, so long as the act itself is good, indicates 
that very lack of right feeling, and right percep- 
tion, which confounds the formal morality of the 
world with religion. For, in the distinctions of 
the Christian System, the motive makes the 
deed good or bad ; makes the two mites richer 
than all the rest of the money in the treasury ; 
makes the man who hates his brother a mur- 
derer. The good action may bless others, but 
if I do not perform it from a right motive, it 
does not bless me ; and the essential peculiarity 
of religion is, that it regards inward develop- 
ment, individual purity, personal holiness — so 
that one essential excellence of the good deed 
consists in its effect upon the agent — consists in 
the sinews which it lends to his moral power, 
and the quantity it adds to his spiritual life. 
When, from a right motive, with effort and sac- 



130 nicodemus: 

rifice, I help a weak and poor man, I enrich my 
individual and spiritual being. If I bestow from 
a mere gush of feeling, I receive no permanent 
spiritual benefit ; if from a bad motive, 1 im- 
poverish my own heart. Acts, then, which ap- 
pear the same thing in form, differ widely, con- 
sidered in their religious bearings. There is 
the morality of impulse, the morality of selfish- 
ness, and the morality of principle, or religious 
morality. The motive of the first-named, we 
obey instantaneously, and it may do good, just 
as we draw our hands from the flame, and 
thereby obey a law of our physical nature, 
though we act without any consideration of 
that law. A great deal of the morality in the 
world is of this kind. It may do good, but has 
no reference to the law of rectitude. It is im- 
pulsive, and, therefore, does not indicate a stead- 
fast virtue, or a deep religious life. For the 
very impulsiveness that leads to the gratification 
of the sympathies, leads to the gratification of 
the appetites, and thus we often find generous 
and benevolent characteristics mixed with 
vicious conduct. Then, as I have said, there is 
the morality of selfishness. In this instance, I may 
perform many good actions from sheer calcula- 
tion of material profit. I may be benevolent, 
because it will increase my reputation for phi- 
lanthropy. I may be honest, because "honesty 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 131 

is the best policy." But is this the highest, the 
religious sanction of morality ? No : the mo- 
rality of the religious man is the morality of 
principle. The motive in his case is not "I 
will," or " I had better," but " I ought." He re- 
cognises morality as a law, impersonal, over- 
mastering the dictates of mere self, and holding 
all impulses in subservience to the highest good. 
The morality of impulse is uncertain. The 
morality of policy is mean and selfish. The 
morality of religion is loyal, disinterested, self- 
sacrificing. It acts from faith in God, and with 
reference to God. 

But another trait separates the religious from 
the merely formal moralist. It consists in the 
fact that with him, " morality" as we common- 
ly employ the term, is not all. * Piety has its 
place. His affections not only flow earthward, 
but turn heavenward. He not only loves his 
neighbor as himself, but he loves the Lord his 
God. He not only visits the widows and the 
fatherless in their affliction, but he keeps him* 
self unspotted from the world. With him, toil 
is prayer, and contentment is thanksgiving, but 
because he infuses into them a spirit of devotion, 
which he has cultivated by more solitary and 
special acts. With him it is a good thing to 
live honestly, industriously, soberly ; but all life 
is not outward, is not in traffic and labor, and 



132 nicodemus : 

meat and drink. There is an inward world, to 
which his eyes are often introverted — a world 
of spiritual experience, of great realities and 
everlasting sanctions — a world behind the veil — 
a holy of holies in his soul, where rests the Shec- 
inah of God's more immediate presence ; yea, 
where he meets God face to face. And it is 
this that directs his public conduct. The or 
derly and beautiful method of his life is not the 
huddled chance- work of good impulses, is not 
the arithmetic of .selfishness ; but it is a serene 
and steady plan of being projected from the 
communion of the oratory, and the meditation 
of the closet. 

Again, I say, let us not depreciate morality. 
Let us condemn that ostentatious piety which 
lifts up holy hands to God, but never stretches 
them out to help man — which anoints its head 
with the oil of sanctity, but will not defile its 
robes with the blood of the abused, or the con- 
tact of the guilty — which is loud in profession 
and poor in performance — which makes long 
prayers, but devours widows' houses. Let us 
condemn this, but remember that this is not real 
religion, only its form ; as, often, the kind deed, 
the honest method is not true morality, only its 
form. Of both these departments of action, let 
it be said : that these we have done, and not 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 133 

left the other undone. Let us recognise the 
perfect harmony, nay, the identity of religion 
and morality, in that One who came from the 
solitary conflict of the desert, to go about doing 
good, and who descended, from the night-prayer 
on the mountain, to walk and calm the troubled 
waves of the sea. 

But those who rest in a mere routine of kind 
and prudential deeds, need the deeper life and 
the inner perception which detects the meaning 
and gives the sanction to those deeds. Such 
need the vital germ of morality — the changed 
heart, the new birth. 

And as I have spoken of a subordinate yet 
somewhat distinct class who may be ranked un- 
der the general head of seekers after religion in 
philosophy, let me here briefly allude to some 
with whom religion is a matter of mere senti- 
ment and good feeling. Such are easily moved 
by the great doctrines of the New Testament. 
They are affected by the sermon ; they have 
gushes of devout emotion during the prayer. 
But with them, religion is not a deep and steady 
pulse of divine life. Prayer is not a protracted 
aspiration — is not a habit. They feel well to- 
wards God, because they consider him a good- 
natured, complacent Being; but they do not 
meditate upon the majesty of His Nature, upon 
His Justice, and His Holiness. From the doc- 



134 * nicodemus : 

trine of immortality they draw consolation, but 
not sanctity. They regard it as a good time 
coming, but it furnishes them with no personal 
and stringent applications for the present. They 
need a more solemn and penetrating vision ; a 
profounder experience in the soul. They need 
to be born again. 

Then, again, there are those who may be 
called amateurs in religion. That is, they are 
curious about religious things. They like to 
speculate about it, to argue upon its doctrines, 
and to broach or examine new theories. They go 
about from sect to sect, and from church to 
church, tasting what is novel in the reasoning, 
or pleasing in the manner of the preacher ; in 
one place to-day to hear an orator; in another 
to-morrow to hear a latter-day saint ; it is all 
the same thing to them. All they want with 
religion is entertainment and excitement. They 
are Athenians, ever seeking some new thing. 
They smack at a fresh heresy as if they were 
opening a box of figs, and are as delighted with 
a controversy, as a boy with a sham-fight. 
They have no fixed place in the Church univer- 
sal. They are liberalists, without any serious 
convictions, and cosmopolites without any home 
affections. In fact, to them religion is a sham- 
fight — a matter of spectacle and zest — not a 



THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 135 

personal interest, or an inward life. They 
would seek Jesus by night, because they hope 
to learn something wonderful or new, and would 
be startled to hear his solemn words tingling in 
their hearts : " Ye must be born again !" 

Nay, my friends, would not these solemn 
words startle many of us ? It may be, we 
have never made any inquiry concerning re- 
ligion — have never even come to Jesus, as it 
were, by night. Such, with their barks of be- 
ing drifting down the stream of time, have 
never asked the meaning of their voyage, or 
reckoned their course ; nay, perhaps they live 
as though religion were a fable, as though earth 
were our permanent abiding-place, and heaven 
a dream. If such there are, they have not even 
listened to the Savior's words. But there are 
others among us, perhaps, who are interested in 
the subject of religion, who are in some way or 
another engaged in it ; but who are restless 
seekers after it, rather than actual possessors 
of it ; who are resting upon insufficient sub- 
stitutes for it. And I ask, would not these 
words, breaking forth from the lips of Jesus, 
startle us in our ritualism, our philosophy, 
our outside morality, our sentimentalism, or 
our mere curiosity ? And do they not speak 
to us? Are they not as true now as when 



136 NICODEMUS. 

they struck upon the shivering ear of Nicode- 
mus ? Do they not make us feel as intensely 
our obligation and our religious want, as he 
might have felt there, with the wind flitting by 
him as though the Holy Spirit were touching 
him with its appeal, and with the calm gaze of 
the Savior looking into his heart? Do they 
not demand of us, resting here awhile from 
the cares and labors of the world, something 
more than mere conformity, or intellectual be- 
lief, or formal deeds ? Do they not demand a 
new and better spirit, a personal apprehension 
of the religious life, a breaking up and regen- 
eration of our moral nature, a change of heart ? 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 139 



VI. 

THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

And Jesus answered, and said unto her, " Martha, Martha, 
thou art careful and troubled about many things : but one thing 
is needful ; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall 
not be taken away from her." — Ltjke x. 41, 42. 

A series of discourses upon Characters in 
the Gospels, cannot well be completed without 
reference to "the Sisters of Bethany." That 
argument for the truth of the New Testament 
narrative, which is drawn from the vividness 
and naturalness of its personages, is strikingly 
illustrated in the impression left upon us by 
these. One of the most masterly achievements 
of genius, in works of fiction, is the creation of 
individuality, and the maintenance of strict con- 
sistency in character. This is accomplished 
only by minute description and variety of inci- 
dent. Yet here there is only a casual lifting of 
the veil, and Mary and Martha stand before us, 
never to be mistaken or forgotten. They ap- 
pear upon the scene but two or three times ; 



140 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

there is not the least attempt at portrait- paint- 
ing ; but the simple evolution of facts presents 
them as separate, and as self-consistent in their 
individuality, as any two persons that we see 
about us every day. 

The traits which constitute this difference, 
are easily defined. Martha presents us with all 
the elements of a bustling, practical life — indus- 
try, calculation, and thrift. To her, this tan- 
gible world afforded a complement of cares and 
duties, and the plane of her solicitude ran 
through no higher sphere. The appeal of earth- 
ly interests was incessant, and her thoughts 
soared into no region that lies beyond the dili- 
gence of the hands. There is no mistaking the 
evidence, in her character, of good-heartedness 
and hospitality, and a degree of religious faith. 
She respected the Redeemer, and acknowledged 
his claims. But, after all, her leading traits are 
those of a vigorous and officious worldliness. 
Her activity and her zeal lacked the loftiest ele- 
ments, and were not inspired by the highest mo- 
tives. Her individuality is inseparable from a 
thousand outward things, and does not stand 
before us complete and serene in its own inner 
sufficiency. 

On the other hand, Mary impresses us with the 
influence of a meditative and devout spirit, liv- 
ing in the world, fulfilling the duties that call for 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 141 

her, yet deriving her true life from sources far 
above the world. Her's was an ideal mind, 
communing with the unseen, acquainted with 
spiritual realities, quick to apprehend higher 
good — and expecting it. Yet we may believe 
that she neglected no practical claim, but, rather, 
was peculiarly sensitive to every obligation. 
As all her work lay before her in the sacred or- 
der of duty, it was comparatively easy, and left 
her free from embarrassments and intrusive 
cares. Fulfilling each task in its season, 
she redeemed time to seek that higher inspira- 
tion by which even the lowliest thing is best 
done. Perhaps, moreover, to her spiritual vision, 
this world absolutely had not so many, nor such 
pressing claims as appeared to her sister. The 
scale of her up-reaching thought reduced the 
size of these earthly interests, taught her to re- 
ject many superfluous cares, and made the rest 
more concise and less peremptory. To say the 
least, Mary was evidently one of those charac- 
ters who cause us to overlook what they do, in 
the consideration of what they are. Her life, 
her own inner being, was of such a quality that 
we chiefly notice it, whether manifested in 
words, in deeds, or in silent expression. She 
sat at the feet of Jesus, for her appropriate 
sphere was in the region of aspiration and re- 
ceptivity. Her heart was a censer of devout 



142 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

breathings, and her whole being vibrated to holy 
influences, like a harp. It seems to be the mis- 
sion of such natures, not so much to act, as to 
shine in their own calm brightness, like planets, 
reflecting upon us a light which has been poured 
into them from unseen urns. But, wherever 
they move, their presence is felt ; man's heart 
grows better for the time, and his sins lie still, 
while, through the rank and seething atmosphere 
of earth, they impart glimpses and suggestions 
of heaven. 

These peculiar characteristics of the two sis- 
ters, and the differences between them, appear 
in the scene connected with the text. Jesus 
enters the house of Mary and Martha, and we 
behold on the part of the latter, welcome, hos- 
pitality, and respect. She evinces these, by her 
ostentatious endeavors to serve Jesus. Mary, 
on the other hand, honors him by an expressive 
evidence of her sense of the greatness and rarity 
of the opportunity which his presence afforded 
her : and she left her sister to serve alone, that 
she might sit at his feet as a disciple. To him, 
this was a more grateful testimonial than the 
most sumptuous banquet. 

Again : both these sisters grieved at the death 
of their brother Lazarus. Both were solicitous 
that Christ should avert that calamity. With 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 143 

both, no doubt, this anxiety, and this sorrow, 
were equally sincere. But how different the ex- 
pression of these sentiments ! With Martha, it 
is likely, the mourning was more of an outcry ; 
with Mary, a more silent but more intense an- 
guish. At least, we see that Martha first heard 
of the arrival of Jesus. Her careful and do- 
mestic habits would naturally lead her into a 
position where she would catch the tidings be- 
fore her sister, and her restless disposition would 
send her more readily to her ordinary work. 
But Mary's thoughts of sorrow could not thus 
be turned away, and she sat still in the house. 
And, again, observe the difference when they 
met Jesus. It is true, with a singular fidelity to 
nature, the Evangelist represents both as salut- 
ing the Savior with the same words : "Lord, 
if thou hadst been here, my brother had not 
died ;" but Martha was able to hold a conver- 
sation, while Mary, with her more sensitive 
spirit, sank at the Redeemer'-s feet ; and while, 
as he was about to perform the miracle, the one 
maintained a reverential silence, the other in- 
truded coarsely her practical advice. 

After the raising of Lazarus, too, the same 
differences are strikingly apparent. At the sup- 
per in Bethany, Martha served ; but Mary took 
" a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, 
and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his 



144 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

feet with her hair : and the house was filled with 
the odor of the ointment." Each of these offices 
was well meant ; each was a token of heart- 
felt gratitude. But what a contrast between 
the literal profusion of the one, and the costly 
delicacy of the other ! These offerings indicate 
a radical diversity of character — the one, a 
matter-of-fact nature, material in its conceptions, 
and engaged in utilitarian interests ; the other, 
a sacred and aspiring soul, seeking some rich 
symbol by which to express its fervid sentiment, 
and rendering a tribute which has been conse- 
crated as an everlasting memorial, and which 
has filled the earth with its fragrance. 

Here, then, we have two distinct types of 
character — of womanly character. The one, 
entangled and perplexed among those cares 
which especially throng in woman's sphere ; the 
other, regarding these, as it were, from above, 
and conducting them in the serene and orderly 
spirit of duty. The one, woman with well- 
meant aims, but with unconsidered principles 
of action ; the other, woman adorned and 
guided by the sentiment of religion. The one, 
woman merely as an earthly seeker and a do- 
mestic drudge ; the other, woman as an immor- 
tal being, unfolding her highest destiny below 
and above the stars. Nay, Mary and Martha 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 145 

express that elementary difference of character 
which may be found in either of the sexes. The 
difference between an ideal and a merely prac- 
tical nature ; between a devout and an unsanc- 
tified spirit ; between those who are only of this 
world, and tl^pse who are essentially of heaven ; 
between those whose whole achievement is in 
what they have got and in what they do, and 
those whose greatness is in the power, beauty, 
and harmony of a spiritual life conscious of the 
Presence, and unfolded by the breath of God. 

But I have already sufficiently indicated these 
differences, and I would say, therefore, that I 
have selected the Sisters of Bethany, not mere- 
ly as representing some particular phase or 
phases of human character, but as suggesting 
some reflections appropriate to the closing dis- 
course of this series, and which may apply to 
character in general, and in either sex. 

Nevertheless, the first observation which I 
shall make is, that Mary and Martha, severally, 
may be considered as representing Woman with 
and without the influence of Christianity. I do 
not particularly refer now to the influence 
which Christianity has exerted upon the out- 
ward condition of Woman. This needs no 
illustration. That sex which almost alone was 
friendly to the Savior ; which anointed his feet 



146 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

with ointment, and followed him with tears to 
his cross ; which prepared sweet spices for his 
burial, and was the first to hail his resurrection, 
has, in turn, been especially befriended by his 
Gospel. It has raised her from the degrading 
condition of a slave, or her still mpre degrading 
condition as a mere instrument of passion, to be 
a refined and purifying influence in society, and 
to lend to home the dignity and the grace of the 
mother, wife, sister, and daughter. 

But I would specially speak of the needs and 
the obligations of Woman in the sphere where 
Christianity has placed her. Though she has 
been rescued from the bondage of brutal and 
sensual barbarism, and has emerged from the 
silly admiration of romantic ages, to stand in 
noble equality by the side of man, still her path 
is different from his. For, I must confess, that, 
so far as I understand it, I have but little sym- 
pathy with the modern movement for " the 
Rights of Woman." If it simply asserts her 
claim to all the privileges which belong to her 
as a human and an immortal being, there can 
be no dispute. But if it impugns that system, 
which allots to her a different station from man, 
I believe that it assaults a great and beautiful 
law, and makes a demand which the general 
sentiment of her own sex will repudiate. I re- 
fer to that principle of duality which runs 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 147 

through the universe, dividing every perfect 
whole into two parts, assigning to each its own 
necessary work, and rendering this very diver- 
sity essential to harmony. It is the duality of 
day and night, of the leaf and the flower, of the 
hand and the heart. By virtue of this law, hu- 
manity is two-fold, and is perfect only in the 
man and the woman ; each of these having a 
peculiar sphere. The delicacy of her organi- 
zation, her peculiar sensibilities, the intuitions 
which God has planted in her soul, indicate 
which is her sphere. And if she abandons this 
sphere, there is no one else to fill it, and a wide 
circle of human want is left empty and desolate. 
If she abandons this sphere to speculate in the 
market, to brawl in the caucus, to robe herself 
with magisterial severity, to lead armies, and to 
wield the implements of muscular toil, then the 
spherical unity of life collapses, one side becomes 
paralyzed and the other monstrous. There may 
be a class of women of frosty sympathies and 
intrepid nerves, whose " strong-mindedness " has 
absorbed almost every other quality, and to 
whose philosophical comprehension the amenities 
of life may seem puling and narrow. These may 
aspire to the control of the forum and of the ex- 
change. But I believe that few, who are really 
conscious of the true dignity of woman, would 
consent to such a condition. They recognise 



148 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

those virtues which are peculiarly woman's vir- 
tues, and the necessity of that separate path in 
which, since they came out together from the 
gates of Eden, she has walked side by side with 
man, through the flowers and the thorns ; each 
the equal and the help-mate of the other, because 
each possesses a different power from the other, 
thus fulfilling the beneficent design, and corres- 
ponding with the universal law of God. 

Woman has her own peculiar sphere, then ; 
and, in this sphere, I say, it will be a very differ- 
ent thing with herself, and with those upon 
whom she acts, whether she is controlled or not 
by Christianity. This topic opens too wide a 
field for anything like exhaustive treatment at 
the present time, but let us attend to one or two 
general suggestions. 

Consider, then, the position of Woman in 
modern civilized society, and her need of Chris- 
tianity in this position. It is only in a physical 
sense that she can be called weak, here. And 
even this renders her powerful. An instinctive 
delicacy ministers to her least want. And not 
only is she protected by the universal presence 
of law, but by sentiment. In the crowded as- 
sembly, an array of household affections engird 
her, recognising her as the representative of all 
that is sacred in sister, wife, and mother. She 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 149 

walks through the streets in safety, for her honor 
is guarded by a spontaneous chivalry, more po- 
tent than a thousand swords. In every respect* 
woman, in modern society, is not weak, but 
strong. Her influence may be unobtrusive, but 
for this reason it is, perhaps, the stronger. Look- 
ing abroad upon the world, it is man's action 
that we chiefly behold in the street, the Senate, 
or the camp ; but how much of woman's con- 
trol silently mingles with all this ! How secret- 
ly it winds into the policy of the statesman, and 
nourishes ambition, and dictates the scheme of 
wealth! And while, sometimes, she has not 
hesitated herself to head legions, more frequently 
she incites heroes. Her voice is the trumpet- 
charge that rings in the patriot's ear, and her 
counsels and appeals project that ideal of Lib- 
erty which brightens through the bloody mist of 
battle. But while thus she secretly touches all 
the springs of public action, there are two de- 
partments in which her influence is especially 
powerful. I allude to the department of custom 
or fashion, and to that of domestic life. In the 
former respect, it is not assuming too much to 
say, that she gives the law, and reigns supreme. 
Almost every rule of etiquette pre-supposes her 
presence, and even when it is but an exchange 
of courtesies between man and man, its tone is 
modulated by those customs of which she is the 



150 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

centre. Account for it as we can, we know 
that a community entirely composed of men, 
would be a community of sheer barbarians. In 
a large degree, woman has subdued this rough 
speech, and checked this fierce selfishness, and 
converted man from an Arab, or a sea-king, to 
the methods and amenities of a gentleman. I 
repeat, fashion assumes its shape, customs take 
their mould and spirit, under her influence. Her 
power is great, then, in this by no means insig- 
nificant department of society. It depends 
much upon her. indeed, whether society shall 
be frivolous or noble, pure or base. If her own 
mind is weak, and her life trifling : if she lives 
only in the whirl of excitement and of artificial 
splendor ; if she turns the world into a perpetual 
ball-room, or theatre ; if she makes etiquette of 
more importance than principle ; if she is willing 
to be the idol of honeyed and unmeaning compli- 
ments, a living gew-gaw, a doll made up of 
rouge, and musk, and lace, a frame to hang 
flounces on ; if she thus moves only through a 
routine of folly, relieved occasionally by a puff 
of second-rate sentiment ; then we shall see, in 
all the region round about, a pestilence of non- 
sense and dissipation. If, too, instead of shrink- 
ing from the touch of the libertine, as from the 
pollution of a charnel-house, she gives him her 
smiles ; if she allows a good coat to excuse in- 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 151 

temperance, and a mustachioed lip to consecrate 
profaneness, she is to blame if vice prevails in 
the community, and her responsibility in this 
respect is deeper than she may be aware. But 
if not neglecting the dictates of true gentility, 
not unsolicitous as to the proprieties of a refined 
taste, she carries into society the intellect, the 
dignity, the purity of a true woman, we shall 
have a community as different from the other, 
as her own ideal and conduct. If woman has 
this power, then, does not much depend upon 
the plane from which she views life ? Does not 
much depend upon whether she cherishes 
material and superficial conceptions of the 
world and is entangled among its cares and in- 
terests, or whether she has often retired from it 
to clarify her vision with meditation, and to pu- 
rify her heart w r ith prayer, and to descend into 
it again with the power of a true, life-giving 
principle ? Is it not of vital importance whether 
she carries into society the tendencies of Mar- 
tha, or those of Mary ? 

But I referred also to woman's power in 
domestic life. I have said that she secretly 
touches many of the springs that move this busy 
and scheming world ; for these springs are often 
entwined with the motives, and lie open in the 
confidence of home. Thus, with her is the 
secret of many public follies and virtues. 



152 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

Sometimes, when the man would shrink from a 
rash speculation, or perhaps, a wrong transac- 
tion, she rebukes him for his faint-heartedness, 
until he plunges headlong into ruin. Some- 
times, her love of ease demands that luxury, or 
her pride, that ostentation which bids him strain 
every sinew, and forego every scruple, in the 
toil for wealth, and which exhausts every honest 
source of revenue. But, on the other hand, in 
the temptations and disappointments of business, 
how great is her power to preserve, to console, 
and to redeem. A power, it may be, not obtru- 
sively exercised, yet for this reason all the more 
effectual : for how much is there in the mere 
aspect of a home to cheer the sinking heart, to 
clear the mind's eye, and to steady the hand. 
And how much of the business of the world is 
dictated by home-motives. How much of this 
daily toil is the endeavor of the strong arm and 
the manly will, in behalf of trusting and depen- 
dent woman. And, when we view it in this 
light, the market relaxes something of its sordid 
look, and the face of toil is lighted with a sacred 
expression. Work, then, does not all appear a 
selfish scramble, but often, as a sacrifice at the 
shrine of human affection, and the crowds that 
pour forth in the morning and return at night, 
are daily processions of love and duty. 

But while thus we detect the action of woman 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 153 

upon society, through the opportunities of home, 
there is one region of her influence which can 
never be left unnoticed. I allude, of course, to 
her agency as a mother* Talk of the power 
that wields sceptres, and sways senates, and 
dashes in the front of victorious battles ; why, 
the germ of all sprung up within her guardian- 
ship, and is unfolded by the breathings of her 
thought. And, when we realize this, when we 
remember how she comes in contact with the 
earliest fluctuations of the will, with the intelli- 
gence, when it is yet nebulous, with the whole 
spirit of the future man, long ere it has crystal- 
ized ; we feel that a mother's influence is inex- 
tricably interwoven with his destiny. Is it an 
indifferent matter, then, whether her own spirit 
is peevish, vexed with cares, and clouded in its 
perceptions, or whether the holy power of reli- 
gion controls and guides her ? 

We have been considering woman's need 
of Christianity in her influence over others : 
how much more does she require it for herself. 
She is called upon to accomplish not only the 
gentle mission of love, but of endurance ; and 
those inward springs of consolation which qual- 
ify her to minister to the troubled mind, and to 
watch by the sick-bed, she requires for her own 
strengthening. The whirl of excitement which 

sweeps throu^i the out-door world, and into 

1* 



154 THE SISTERS OP BETHANY, 

which man plunges so eagerly, passes her by 
and leaves her much alone. The frivolities of 
mere fashion lose their zest, as duty and sorrow 
set their seals upon her heart ; flattery, which 
at best is but a breath, subsides with youth and 
beauty ; and nothing can be more wretched 
than a worldly-minded woman, left thus with 
nothing but the memory and the expectations of 
this earth. Or, if she is not left alone, her's is 
peculiarly a sphere of many cares. Often alas ! 
she is linked to brutality and passion, to poverty 
and toil. For. her, frequently, are desertion and 
shame. The vials of a morose or acid temper 
are emptied upon her head- — she suffers, alter- 
nately, the violence and the maudlin humor of 
a debased husband, or must buffet with the stern 
hostility of misfortune. Oh ! the heroes of his- 
tory wear wreaths of fame about their bleeding 
brows ; but who shall unfold the records of 
woman's martyrdom, traced in tears, hidden in 
silence, beneath countless roofs. And how shall 
she meet this trouble of many things ? With 
the perplexed, unbalanced mind of Martha ; or 
with the upward-looking, serene spirit of Mary ? 

But I proceed to draw from the suggestions 
of the text, one or two reflections applicable to 
phases of character and of life, in both sexes. 
I observe, then, in the second place, that Mary 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 155 

and Martha furnish an illustration of the differ- 
ent qualities of Reason and Faith, It is the 
office of the intellect to busy itself about many- 
things, but the heart desires to rest upon a few 
simple and sacred convictions. Nay, even the 
intellect must start from these. The most rigid 
methods of science are built upon realities which 
cannot be scientifically defined, but which lie as 
a ground-work of intuition in the soul. For 
instance, the philosopher must have confidence 
in the rectitude of his own mental faculties — 
must rely upon his reason before he takes a step 
in the way of reasoning. He must have confi- 
dence too, in the prevalence of law, and the 
intrinsic harmony of truth. However logical 
our induction, the end of the thread is fastened 
upon the assurance of faith. And while I can- 
not deny the splendid achievements of intellect, 
but rejoice in it as one of the grand elements 
of our immortal growth, yet it seems to be one 
of the most important offices of this very intel- 
lect, to bring us, in the end, to a simple confi- 
dence in certain central truths which our inves- 
tigation never invalidates, and which all the 
highest powers of our nature confess and 
demand. I think that any man, just in propor- 
tion to the depth of his culture and the amount 
of his knowledge, will feel the necessity of this 
faith. For, after all his discoveries, he does not 



156 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

get rid of mystery. He finds that while the 
objects of his youthful conviction are more va- 
riously illustrated, and become more grand in 
the wider horizon of his educated mind, they 
still retain their claims upon his belief. The 
telescope and the microscope have revealed 
nothing that renders them less trustworthy, or 
less necessary. Nay, to him they appear even 
more necessary. It is true, the scope of his 
vision has stretched into immensity, and many 
a riddle of early speculation has been solved. 
But out among these majestic realities of the 
universe, the need of an Infinite Father and an 
immortal life, seems far more urgent. The cold 
brightness of innumerable worlds, the boundless 
depths of silence in which they lie, bewilder and 
appal him. With nothing but the light of rea- 
son to assure him, he feels insignificant and 
alone, and gladly falls back upon the elements 
of the simple prayer, with which he laid him 
down to sleep when an unlettered child. Mys- 
teries spring upon him from every quarter. The 
moment he determines to define all things, and to 
trust in nothing that his intellect cannot grasp, 
he finds himself tossed upon a flood of perplex- 
ity. In many instances, his intellect may be 
invigorated and delighted, but then he is a man, 
not all intellect, but warm with affections, 
yearning with immortal desires ; and these cry 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 157 

out for a harbor, cry out for some axis of assur- 
ance on which to rest, and not drift and drive 
forever : and he finds, after all, that there is a 
sufficiency in this Bible, a meaning in its simple 
oracles, such as the perplexed mariner finds in 
the compass, such as the pilgrim knows, when 
amid the uncertainties of his journey, he dis- 
covers a sign of guidance and a spot of repose. 
The intellect must come back to the best 
convictions of the heart — it must have a cen- 
tral rest — however eccentric the arc, however 
wide the radius of its explorations. 

The truth which I have now endeavored to 
enforce, forbids me to fear any assaults upon 
Christianity, which may be made at the present 
day. In its restlessness w T ith theories, its dissat- 
isfaction with new methods, the mind of man 
will gladly return to the moral and personal 
revelation of the New Testament. Man is not 
all intellect. Faith has its functions and its 
authority. And of these, we must first rely 
upon the latter. Intellect, busy and troubled 
about many things, never can find absolute 
truth, and its wider discoveries are not all ne- 
cessary. But faith gives to our hearts the one 
thing needful. It assures us of things we must 
know ; what we are, whither we are tending, 
and in whose hands we are held. 

There are times, moreover, when we cannot 



158 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

reason, when our souls are too much troubled to 
pursue any fine series of investigation, when 
with torn and bleeding affections, with our dead 
in our arms, we stumble in the valley of the 
shadow of death, and we need some simple 
prop of trust on which to lean. Diligent as 
Martha, let the intellect ever be — anxious about 
many things-*-but let faith, like Mary, abide in 
the innermost shrine of the heart, calmly sitting 
at Jesus' feet. 

Finally, I observe that Mary and Martha 
represent the general difference between earth- 
ly perplexity and heavenly rest ; between the 
confusion, the vacillations and uncertainties of 
an unreligious spirit, and the peace, distinctness, 
and order of a religious one. There are many 
illustrations of this distinction, some of which 
have already been suggested. But let me ask 
you to consider the advantage in life, which 
that man who acts from the simple direction of 
duty, possesses over one who acts from policy. 
The former escapes many perplexities w T hich 
beset the latter. In every line of conduct he 
has to consult but one criterion, and that is the 
standard of absolute right. But the man of 
policy often finds himself where two roads 
diverge — the one may be the way of immediate 
gain, the other is the strait path of rectitude. 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 159 

He halts, he hesitates, he is teased by sugges- 
tions, and very likely chooses the former, to 
find in the end, that he has only increased his 
perplexity. The other may sometimes lose 
reputation, or money, by his loyalty to duty, but 
he never loses presence of mind, and all his 
course lies before him in beautiful simplicity. 
Well is it said, that " the wicked are like the 
troubled sea, that cannot rest." There is the 
conflict with conscience, and afterward the 
rebuke of conscience ; the thirst fpr unlawful 
gain, and then the disgust upon finding its com- 
parative worthlessness, and the mingling of 
regret with enjoyment, like the ashes at the core 
of the Dead Sea apples. But he who has sat 
at Jesus' feet, and walked in the guidance of his 
spirit, enjoys rest, the rest of an approving con- 
science, and the intrinsic reward of rectitude. 

Again, consider the perplexity which comes 
from ungoverned appetites and passions. He 
who surrenders himself to their impulses, is ever 
plunging from indulgence into remorse, and is 
ever lashed by the consciousness of self-degra- 
dation, and the remonstrances of his better 
nature. And the more he gratifies these pro- 
pensities, the more they demand, until his life is 
divided between brutish indifference and inward 
torment. But religion, like the law of gravity, 
binds each element of our nature to its own 



100 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

orbit. It gives the peace of a harmonious 
character, where the moral and intellectual 
powers hold their lawful spheres, and the appe- 
tites fill their restricted place, and the law of 
purity and holiness reigns supreme. The reli- 
gious man is not without his conflicts against 
temptation, but he always enjoys the conscious- 
ness of good endeavor, and his peace, when it 
ensues, is not the peace of surrender, but of 
victory. 

Of the rest, which comes from faith, from 
trust in religious truth, from communion with 
God, I have already spoken. And I have said 
enough to enforce the illustration which I draw 
from my subject — enough to show that in that 
highest condition of human nature which religion 
induces, there is a certain serenity and strength, 
such as Mary evinced — a peace of God that 
passeth all understanding. While a spirit that 
has not this inner guidance and control, a spirit 
that acts from no higher level than the world, is 
always "troubled about many things," and, in 
its perplexity, betrays its need and its weakness. 
After all, in the silence of Mary, there is an im- 
pressiveness of power which does not appear in 
all the tumult of Martha. And it will be found 
that peace is an attribute of the highest power. 
The most boisterous talker is generally the fee- 
blest thinker. The pompous philosopher is apt 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 161 

to be a quack. Silence reigns throughout those 
enomious spaces where worlds travel on their 
way. Silence wraps that electric life which 
animates nature, and which is thus more power- 
ful than when it is disclosed in thunder. A sea 
of silence lies around the throne of God, and 
the Almighty speaks not and utters no sound. 
So in this peace of a religious soul, there is evi- 
dence of a hidden power that is greater than 
any outward force. Mary is stronger in her 
still, meditative posture, than Martha in her 
anxious toil. 

Religion, then, my friends, is " the one thing 
needful ;" it gives us a grace, and life, and cen- 
tral peace, which we must have, whatever else 
we may lack. We may fail in prosperity, we 
may be destitute of friends, we may lose health, 
but what are all these compared with the spirit 
of duty, the consciousness of integrity, and a 
true trust in God ? 

And while, in this brief series of discourses, I 
have led you to consider some diversities of 
character, I shall be glad if the lesson afforded 
by all, shall be impressed upon, your hearts, that 
the source of all real defect as well as guilt, lies 
deeper than mere temperament, or station, or 
intellectual culture — in the springs of moral ac- 
tion, in the depths of our spiritual nature, and 



162 THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

that the essential remedy, the absolute need of 
all is in the life and energy of Religion, of £aith, 
and holiness, and love. 

And, as I close, I would say that, if we have 
seen, in any of these phases of character, a mir- 
ror of our own, let us not stifle the conviction ; 
let us honestly accept the instruction, the warn- 
ing, and the rebuke, and let us rejoice that God 
has given us the power of repentance, and offers 
us the help of His Grace. That power, let us 
not neglect ; that Grace, let us not slight. 

Among all who have occupied our attention, 
John, with his wild prophet-garb, lifting the cry 
of Reform ; Herod, with his sensual eye and 
mocking lip ; Thomas, with his doubt breaking 
away nn conviction ; Pilate, with his complacent 
and unscrupulous policy ; Nicodemus, marvel- 
ling at the intensity of true Religion and the 
deep requirements that it makes ; Martha, cum- 
bered with much serving, and Mary rejoicing in 
the sacred privilege of discipleship ; among all 
these stands one Figure, peculiar and alone, the 
central Character of the Gospels, which no pen 
can delineate, no tongue adequately describe, 
[n the glory of his Divine Authority, in the 
tender sympathies of his humanity, his meek 
face turned in mingled love and pity, his raiment 
stained with travel, the sick looking up in his 



THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 163 

path, and the common people listening to him 
gladly — there he stands. His hands are stretch- 
ed out for deeds of mercy ; are stretched out in- 
vitingly to each of us. For years he has spoken 
to us, urging us to follow his example, to make 
his spirit our law. Has that call any meaning 
for us ? Have we heeded it ? Or is it lost in 
the tumult of the world ? If so, God grant that 
in these Sabbath-hours, when we have turned 
to that Divine history, perhaps to see our own 
moral features reflected in the personages that 
have passed across the scene ; God grant that in 
these hours some influence may have reached 
us, which shall move us to go to Jesus' feet, and 
hear him say : " Ye have chosen that good part 
which shall not be taken away from you." 



Clntmnntrk; 

OR, 

RECOLLECTIONS OF OUR HOME IN THE WEST. 

By ALICE CAREY. 

Illustrated ly Darley. One vol., 12mo. 



"We do not hesitate to predict for these sketches a wide popularity. 
They bear the true stamp of genius — simple, natural, truthful — and evince 
a keen sense of the humor and pathos, of the comedy and tragedy, of life 
in the country. No one who has ever read it can forget the sad and beau- 
tiful story of Mary Wildermings ; its weird fancy, tenderness, and beauty ; 
its touching description of the emotions of a sick and suffering human spirit, 
and its exquisite rural pictures. The moral tone of Alice Carey's writings 
is unobjectionable always." — J. G. Whittier. 

" Miss Carey's experience has been in the midst of rural occupations, in 
the interior of Ohio. Every word here reflects this experience, in the rar- 
est shapes, and most exquisite hues. The opinion now appears to be com- 
monly entertained, that Alice Carey is decidedly the first of our female au- 
thors ; an opinion which Fitz-Greene Halleck, J. G. Whittier, Dr. Griswold, 
Wm. D. Gallagher, Bayard Taylor, with many others, have on various 
occasions endorsed." — Illustrated News. 

" If we look at the entire catalogue of female writers of prose fiction in 
this country, we shall find no one who approaches Alice Carey in the best 
characteristics of genius. Like all genuine authors she has peculiarities; 
her hand is detected as unerringly as that of Poe or Hawthorne ; as much 
as they she is apart from others and above others ; and her sketches of 
country life must, we think, be admitted to be superior even to those delight- 
ful tales of Miss Mitford, which, in a similar line, are generally acknowledged 
*o be equal to anything done in England." — International Magazine. 

«< Alice Carey has perhaps the strongest imagination among the women 
of this country. Her writings will live longer than those of any other 
woman among us." — American Whig Review. 

" Alice Carey has a fine, rich, and purely original genius. Her country 
stories are almost unequaled." — Knickerbocker Magazine. 

" Miss Carey's sketches are remarkably fresh, and exquisite in delicacy, 
humor, and pathos. She is booked for immortality." — Home Journal. 

"The Times speaks of Alice Carey as standing at the head of the living 
female writers of America. We go even farther in our favorable judgment, 
and express the opinion that among those living or dead, she has had no 
equal in this country ; and we know of few in the annals of English litera- 
ture who have exhibited superior gifts of real poetic genius." — The (Portland, 
Me.) Eclectic. 



MISS CHESEBRO'S NEW WORK. 

DREAM-LAND BY DAYLIGHT; 

A 

PANOEAMA OF EOMANCE. 

By CAROLINE CHESEBRO. 

Illustrated by Darley. One vol., 12mo. 



*' These simple and beautiful stories are all highly endued with an exquisite 
perception of natural beauty, with which is combined an appreciative sense of its 
relation to the highest moral emotions." — Albany State Register. 

'* There is a fine vein of pure and holy thought pervading every tale in the vol- 
ume ; and every lover of the beautiful and true will feel while perusing it that 
he is conversing with a kindred spirit." — Albany Evening- Atlas. 

41 The journey through Dream-Land will be found full of pleasure ; and when 
one returns from it, he will have his mind filled with good suggestions for practi- 
cal life." — Rochester Democrat. 

" The anticipations we have had of this promised book are more than realized. 
It is a collection of beautiful sketches, in which the cultivated imagination of the 
Euthoress has interwoven the visions of Dream-Land with the realities of life." 

Ontario Messenger. 

" The dedication, in its sweet and touching purity of emotion, is itself an ear- 
nest of the many 'blessed household voices' that come up from the heart's clear 
depth, throughout the book." — Ontario Repository. N 

" Gladly do we greet this floweret in the field of our literature, for it is fragrant 
with sweets and bright with hues that mark it to be of Heaven's own planting." 

Courier and Enquirer. 

" There is a depth of sentiment and feeling not ordinarily met with, and some 
of the noblest faculties and affections of man's nature are depicted and illustrated 
by the skilful pen of the authoress." — Churchman. 

" This collection of stories fully sustains her previous reputation, and also gives 
a brilliant promise of future eminence in this department of literature." 

Tribune. 

u We find in this volume unmistakeable evidences of originality of mind, an 
almost superfluous depth of reflection for the department of composition to which 
it is devoted, a rare facility in seizing the multiform aspects of nature, and a still 
rarer power of giving them the form and hue of imagination, without destroying 
their identity." — Harper's Magazine. 

" In all the productions of Miss Chesebro's pen is evident a delicate perception 
of the relation of natural beauty to the moral emotions, and a deep love of the true 
and the beautiful in art and nature." — Day-Book. 



JUST PUBLISHED, 

THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 

MEMOIRS OF 

DISTINGUISHED SCOTTISH FEMALE CHARACTERS, 

Embracing the Period of the Covenant and the Persecution. 

By the REV. JAMES ANDERSON. 
In One Volume, 12#io., cloth. Price $1.25 — extra gilt, gilt edges $1.75, 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

" It is written with great spirit and a hearty sympathy, and abounds in incidents of 
more than a romantic interest, while the type of piety it discloses is the noblest and 
most elevated." — N. Y. Evangelist. 

" Seldom has there been a more interesting volume than this in our hands. Stories 
of Scottish suffering for the faith have always thrilled us ; but here we have the me- 
moirs of distinguished female characters, embracing the period of the Covenant and the 
Persecution, with such tales of heroism, devotion, trials, triumphs, or deaths, as rouse 
subdue, and deeply move the heart of the reader."— N. Y. Observer. 

" Many a mother in Israel wiH have her faith strengthened, and her zeal awakened, 
and her courage animated afresh by the example set before her— by the cloud of wit 
nesses of her own sex, who esteemed everything — wealth, honor, pleasure, ease, and 
life itself— vastly inferior to the grace of the Gospel ; and who freely offered themselves 
and all that they had, to the sovereign disposal of Him who had called them with an 
holy calling; according to his purpose and grace."— Richmond, (Va.) Watchman and 



" The Scotch will read this book because it commemorates their noble countrywo- 
men ; Presbyterians will like it, because it records the endurance and triumphs of their 
faith ; and the ladies will read it, as an interesting memorial of what their sex has done 
in trying times for truth and liberty." — Cincinnati Central Christian Herald. 

" It is a record which, while it confers honor on the sex, will elevate the heart, and 
strengthen it to the better performance of every duty." — Richmond (Va.) Religion* 
Herald. 

41 The Descendants of these saints are among us, in this Pilgrim land, and we earn- 
estly commend this book to their perusal."— Plymoth Old Colony Memorial. 

" There are pictures of endurance, trust, and devotion, in this volume of illustrious 
suffering, which are worthy of a royal setting." — Ontario Repository. 

" They abound with incidents and anecdotes illustrative of the times and we need 
scarcely say are deeply interesting to all who take an interest in the progress of Chris- 
tianity."— Boston Journal. 

"Mr. Anderson has treated his subject ably , and has set forth in strong light theen 
during faith and courage of the wives and daughters of the Covenanters."— N. Y. Albion 

"It is a book of great attractiveness, having not only the freshness of novelty but 
every element of historical interest. — Courier and Enquirer. 

" The author is a clergyman of the Scottish kirk, and has executed his undertaking 
with that spirit and fulness which might be expected from one enjoying the best advan- 
tages for the discovery of obscure points in the history of Scotland, and the warmes? 
sympathy with the heroines of his own creed."-- Commercial Advcrtim, 



IN PRESS, 

PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES. 



BY 

AESENE HOUSSAYE. 

With Beautifully-engraved Portraits of Voltaire and Made, de Paraber* 
CONTENTS. 






THE HOUSE OF SCARRON. 

VOLTAIRE. 

VOLTAIRE AND MLLE. DE LIVRY. 

ASPASIA (THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO). 

MADEMOISELLE GAUSSIN. 

CALLOT. LA TOUR. 

RAOUL AND GABRIELLE. 

MADEMOISELLE DE MARIVAUX. 

THE MARCHIONESS' CAPRICES. 

THE MISTRESS OF CORNILLE SCHUT. 

CHAMFORT. 



ABELARD AND HELOISE. 

THE DEATH OF ANDRE CHEN1ER. 

THE MARQUIS DE ST. AULAIRE. 

COLLE. 

THE DAUGHTER OF SEDAINE. 

PRUDHON. 

BLANGINI 

AN UNKNOWN SCULPTOR. 

VANDYKE. 

SAPPHO. 

A LOST POET. 



I 



HANDS FILLED WITH ROSES, FILLED WITH GOLD, FILLED WITH BLOOD. 

THE HUNDRED AND ONE PICTURES OF TARDIF, FRIEND OF GILLOT. 

THREE PAGES IN THE LIFE OF MADAME DE PARABERE. 

DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD UPON THE LIVING. 

"The title of Arsdne Houssaye's volume is not to be literally understood* 
There is more in it than falls at first upon the tympanum of our intelligence. The 
scene and action of the book are by no means restricted to academic groves and 
theatrical green-rooms. Its author allows himself greater latitude. Adopting a 
trite motto, he declares the world a stage. His philosophers and actresses com- 
prise a multitude of classes and characters; he finds them everywhere. Artists 
and thinkers, women of fashion and frequenters of courts, the lover of science 
and the favored of wit and beauty — the majority of all these, according to his 
fantastical preface, are philosophers and actresses. Only on the stage and at the 
Sorbonne, he maliciously remarks, few actresses and philosophers are to be found. 

" To a good book a title is a matter of minor moment. It was doubtless, diffi- 
cult to find one exactly appropriate to a volume so desultory and varied as that 
of Houssaye. In the one selected he has studied antithetical effect, as his coun- 
trymen are prone to do ; but we are not disposed to quarrel with his choice, which 
was perhaps as good as could be made. Philosophers certainly figure in his pages 
— often in pursuits and situations in which few would expect to find them ; ac- 
tresses, too, are there — actresses as they were in France a century ago, rivalling, 
in fashion, luxury, and elegance, the highest ladies of the court, who, on their 
part, often vied with them in dissipation and extravagance. But Houssaye is 
a versatile and excursive genius, loving change of subject, scene, and century; 
and he skips gayly down the stream of time, from the days of Plato and Aspasia 
to our own, pausing here and there, as the fancy takes him, to cull a flower, point 
a moral, or tell a tale."— Blackwood's Magazine. 



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